


Existence Is A Prison

by Serena_Rose



Category: The Good Place (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Imprisonment, Isolation, Memory Loss, Other, Psychological Torture, Rape/Non-con Elements, Time Skips, Torture, Unrequited Love, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-12
Updated: 2020-07-17
Packaged: 2021-03-04 17:48:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 3
Words: 30,104
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25230379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Serena_Rose/pseuds/Serena_Rose
Summary: Michael makes Shawn an offer in order to save his friends and humanity.Himself.
Relationships: Established Cheleanor - Relationship, Janet & Michael (The Good Place), Michael (The Good Place)/Eleanor Shellstrop, Michael/Shawn (The Good Place), Tahani Al-Jamil & Michael (The Good Place)
Comments: 12
Kudos: 59





	1. For Her

**Author's Note:**

> Yep, another torture fic from Rose. It seems to be all I can write these days. This was intended as a one-shot but went overboard so there wasn't really a fitting place to leave it so I went with what you get at the end there before part 2. Enjoy (or don't, this is pretty forking sad).
> 
> Also a quick plug of 'A Punishment To Fit The Crime' by dreamofspike who I feel like pitched the idea of an Eleanor!suit long before the show even did the concept! Go read, there's a lot of inspiration from that work in this fic.

“I solved it,” he says, as the door he long forgot was there opens for the first time in centuries. White light bleeds into the dark, barren room. His eyes are able to adjust better than a human’s would. They’ve always been able to see through the pitch black. There was just simply nothing worth looking at.

There are shapes in the doorway, blocking the light, and he remembers. It’s been a while. He hadn’t expected anyone to come back. They always do. It takes a while, impossible to tell, even with his advanced perspective, but there’s always more pain to be dished out. He tenses, bracing himself, the excitement of seeing someone again nearly overriding any fear of the agony to come.

It’s usually just one. Not always the same. One being, two faces. He’s certain he remembers a time they swapped between the two right in front of him.

“I solved it,” he says again, watching the taller one walk into the room. She has a purple dress and brown hair, round eyes hard with concern. She seems to bring the light into the room with her as she walks towards him and kneels down. He blinks, taken aback at a new face. They haven’t used this one before.

She holds her palms upward and out towards him.

She says a word that sounds like gibberish to start. It’s been too long since anyone had said it that he’d almost lost all connection to it. Of all the tumbleweeds of memories he has in his scrambled, demonic brain, he’d placed that word in a column of Things Not Worth Remembering. They weren’t deleted, just shoved into a recycling bin and forgotten about.

The more she says it, the more he feels compelled to dig it out, to save it from the trash heap.

“Michael? Michael?”

Michael.

Yes, of course! That’s his name. Oh, how fascinating, he has a name! Few creatures get the joy of discovering they have a name for the first time. It’s the first time he’s felt joy in a long time, thank you. Thank you for the light.

“I solved it,” is what he says instead, because it’s all he’s been saying for hundreds, if not a thousand years.

He can’t tear his eyes away from the brown-haired woman – not a woman, he scalds himself for some reason – even as her eyes go damp, her lip trembling. There was a time when she didn’t know how to do that. When she tried, it had been a lot funnier. This wasn’t funny, not just because he’s forgotten how to laugh.

One hand twitches and shakes its way from his side and towards her palms, never breaking her gaze.

“I solved it,” Please stop making your eyes wet. Is that how they plan to hurt him now? It works. It’s very different and almost interesting but it’s not worth his curiosity.

Her fingers brush up against his, slowly linking between his own. He frowns. It’s not a bad touch. Not like it always is.

“Oh god, Michael…” She places her other hand around his so his is sandwiched between both; “What the hell were you…Why would you…?”

He thought he answered that question, even if he’s not entirely sure what she’s asking.

He blinks, his brow furrowing, vaguely aware that there is another silhouette at the door, one that he’s afraid to turn to see, one that makes him feel cold and small, so he lets the familiar brown haired one keep hold of him.

Michael…he’ll have to get used to that again. He hopes they let him keep it from now on.

He leans forward, whispering this time, as if it were a secret forbidden to leave the room. It should be. He hasn’t forgotten that, not along with the other bits of information he knows have been torn out and shredded from his enormous brain.

“I solved it…Janet.” He remembers, wanting her to have her name if he gets his; “I solved it.”

*

“We all know it’s not them you want.” He says to his former boss in the quiet, abandoned remains of his second neighbourhood, “The only reason you want to hurt them is to get to me. Why not just cut out the middle humans?”

Shawn zips his flies up after he’s finished writing his name up the wall of the clock tower.

“What exactly are you offering me now, you turd-weasel?” He snidely remarks, but the glint in his eye tells Michael that the demonic overlord already knows. He just wants Michael to say the words. His usual power-play.

Fine, whatever. He’s too tired to care about such things anymore.

“Just take me.” Michael says without flinching, “Tell the Judge that you agree to our proposal, allow the Bad Place to be reformed so that there is no more eternal torment…except for me. You get to take out all that lust for pain and anguish on me, just like you’ve always wanted. But let the humans go. I’m sure you’re inventive enough that you don’t need them to hurt me.”

As much as his human friends might know the ‘real’ him, they don’t know who he used to be, where he started from, how he came to be the Michael they met in his first experiment. Shawn does. He’s been Shawn’s favorite pet to prod and build up and knock down and kick down in the shirt for what feels like half of his existence. The son of a bench has always got off on treating Michael like a dog to pat on the head with his palm only to strike him with the other side of his hand within a second. That was before Michael turned traitor, before he found his true friends. His family.

Oh, no, don’t call them that, it will make this much harder. Besides, he knows he’s not really one of them, will never truly be a part of that unit. Even Janet seems more at home, having found love with one of them. Michael had thought, so foolishly, he had found something similar. He knows better now. He would have made this offer regardless of recent events, but he’s almost grateful they happened, to give him this extra push.

They will be fine. They will be safe. They will be together. Because of you.

Shawn saunters up close to him, a rather hungry look lifting what might resemble a smile on his face as he eyes up the lower demon before him.

“Hmm. It’s true. I’ve had plenty of time to come up with scenarios that would be perfect to make you miserable, to give you the true traitor’s punishment.” He hisses; “But let’s be honest. Once your pesky cockroaches discover that you’ve offered yourself up in return for their salvation, they’ll never let you do it. They’ll tell the Judge the deal is off.”

He could almost laugh at the irony that Shawn has more faith in the humans’ loyalty and devotion to their former torturer than Michael does.

“I’ve already thought about that. You don’t have to worry. After what I’ve arranged, it will take about a million Bearimys or more until they even realise where I am.” And by then, he predicts, it will no longer matter. The new system will have been in place for so long that no one will dare to change it, if it’s worked.

Hopefully, if there is any justice to give them all their well-deserved final peace, they will never learn the awful truth of what clinched this agreement. What price had to be paid to save humanity.

“So?” He offers his hand out to Shawn; “Do we have a deal?”

*

It was rather basic torture to start with. Shackles around his wrists, pinning his arms back to the wall, trying to stay still as the little poisonous vermin skittered up his body, jabbing their stingers into every inch of his flesh. He resists the urge to ask the demon stood in the corner, a shit eating grin on his face, if this is the best he can do. Michael isn’t an idiot. He knows this is just a warm-up.

Shawn reminds him, every day, that he will keep his end of the bargain. He will play along with the latest little scheme, help train up the ‘new and improved’ torture meant to – ugh, he always cringes – improve and redeem rather than simply punish. He will agree to the reforms. He will throw away the penis flatteners and give the three-headed bears to a good home.

In return, he has Michael. All to himself. No Bad Janet. They’ve all gone to ‘the other side’ now and Shawn won’t risk one of them snitching to their ‘sister’. And the same goes for other demons. Even though there are more than a few hundred who would love to have a go at making Michael the Job Ruining Treacherous Human Lover scream in torment, many of them seem to be favoring the new methods, the new ‘way of things’. If word gets out then Shawn knows it will be the end of him.

On the other hand, that also means that if Michael dares try to escape – if he, for one second, decides he’s taken on more than he can handle and tries to get back to his humans – that will also be breaking the deal. In which case, Shawn will gladly see that the humans are brought into Michael’s own cell and he will get to enjoy all of them being raped by giant penis-bees, just as was originally promised.

Escape? As if Michael would ever. Shawn thinks he knows him so well but he’s become an entirely new demon these past few years. He’s gained so many new, horrible and confusing emotions, so many feelings and ideas and desires that never came to fruition and a bucketload of regrets. Shawn can turn the pain sensors on his human suit up as far as he wants, get out the thumb screws and the cat-o’-nine tails, whatever.

This is fine. Well, not fine, it fucking hurts. But he can cope, so far. All he has to do is remind himself what is at stake. Who this is for. The entire human race, certainly, but a deeper and more personal focus in Michael’s head.

“You know what you are, Mike?” Shawn tells him one day, touching his cheek after he’s just carved a slanted rune deep into the skin, one that’s going to curse his mind with high-pitched screaming for hours; “You’re my Purge. That movie we take away fifty points to anyone who watches and thinks is a novel idea? Given all the torture I have to hold back at work now, I’m glad you’re here. It turns out that you do provide some very helpful catharsis.”

He’s exhausted from the pain, from holding in his anguished groans; “G-glad to be useful, B-Boss…”

“What a shame that this was the only way you could be of help to anyone.”

Shawn rips at his shirt, tearing off a few buttons, then moving the tainted blade to Michael’s chest. He lets out a rather strange hum as he strokes his palm over the skin of Michael’s front, as if pleasantly surprised at what he sees. He then begins to carve more symbols into his torso, watching with childlike glee as Michael arches, his chin up, quivering as his flesh is pierced and burned.

It’s always slow, little tortures, piled on top without relief even when Shawn leaves the room. The knife never goes too deep, never risks piercing the suit, no risk of letting out the giant flaming squid crashing through the new Bad Place HQ and giving the game away. When he’s beaten, lashed and crumpled up on the floor, it’s never so far that it won’t rejuvenate itself. In time.

Time is his only friend now.

One time, when his body is stretched over a rack, wrists tied with razor wire, he hears a bell ring. It even makes Shawn pause, lighting a match above him.

“Oh…I think I know what that sound is! Do you, Mikey? Do you know what special day it is?”

He pants, heavily, hoping it’s not a fake recording of some sort to toy with him. It wouldn’t be the first time.

Shawn leans down close to his ear; “I do believe that your humans have just made it into the Good Place. Congratulations. I bet all four of them plus Janet are boarding the balloon right now. Such a happy picture, the five of them all together. Or, should I say, the six of them?”

He chuckles before tossing the lit match on Michael’s chest.

Despite the burning as his nipple blisters and burns, he clings to the wonderful sense of pride in his essence. They made it! Oh, they finally made it! Well done, you guys!

Please. Be happy. Make it worth all of this.

Shawn tightens the rack, stretching his arms out beyond their limits; “I would not recommend getting complacent anytime soon. Just because they’re surrounded by a load of incompetent, cloud-fucking angels, does not mean I can’t go back on this deal if I wish. Never forget that, Mike. So long as you’re mine, your little pets are safe.”

He hasn’t forgotten. Now, more than ever before, his incentive is a constant reminder. Now that they’ve found Heaven, he wouldn’t dare do anything to take it from them, much less send them down here. With him.

When Shawn is done with him for the day, he leaves him torn and broken, stripped bare, in the corner. Michael feels his fingers run through his hair and he tenses.

The basic torture is getting boring for him, he can tell. It always does.

Michael holds his breath as he hears Shawn hum with amusement at the reaction his touch brings. He knows there are new ideas flashing in the twisted mind of that ancient, evil entity. And, very soon, he’s going to be the one to see them come to life.

For them, he reminds himself as he’s left to burn alone in the dark. For them.

For _her_.

*

“Michael?”

He raises his head as the door opens. He gasps, his body tensing up in more fright than any he’s felt during his time in captivity.

Only one is supposed to enter. No one else is ever supposed to know.

Least of all her. Oh crap, why the fuck is she here?!

Before he can say a word, his lips still swollen and split from the fifty punches earlier that morning, she’s swooping into the room and throwing her arms around him. His broken hands can’t resist the urge to return the hug, giving into the desperate hunger for affection, for salvation. Once he’s had his morsel, he pushes her back by her shoulders.

“W-what are you doing here?” He asks her, “Y-you…You’re ‘sposed to be in the Good Place! How did you even-?”

“I worked it out, dummy! Did you think I wouldn’t be able to? I always see through your tricks, don’t I, it’s my special gift!”

He shakes his head; “No, but…You have to go. Shawn will break his deal if I don’t stay…”

“Don’t worry about Shawn. I’ve squared all that with the Judge.” She assures him, moving her hands back to his face; “I’m taking you home.”

Those words. Oh, sweet Buddha, he’d secretly longed to hear those words. And to have her be the ones to say them.

He nearly curls forward, sobbing with barely accepted joy, reaching for her.

“Oh, Eleanor, I…”

“Shh,” she presses her fingers to his lips and, wonderfully, they don’t hurt the bruises, “You don’t have to say anything. I know why you did this. Damn it, Michael. You’re incredible! To go through all of this, for us? For every human bozo to be allowed a chance to be saved? It’s amazing, dude. You are just…”

She leans in close, pressing her lips against his own wounded mouth. The hunger takes him again and he responds, daring to kiss her back, just for a second before his senses break through.

He pulls back, confused; “Wait. I thought…W-what about Chi-?”

“Forget about Chidi! He’s not here. It’s just us. Just me and you, Michael. Like it should be.” She begins to slide closer to him, almost making her way onto his lap; “Like it should have always been.”

She kisses him again and, oh fuck, he has so many questions that get lost as his tongue is preoccupied reuniting with hers. He wants to cling to her, wrap her up, never make the mistake of letting her go again. No, not a mistake. An obligation. It was what he owed to her. And to Chidi. He has no regrets about that.

But to be able to have Eleanor in his arms again, to feel her hair in his fingers, the taste of her lips, even if somewhat bitter…

Wait.

He pulls back again and looks into her eyes. She tilts her head, curious at his gaze.

Michael smiles; “I solved it, Eleanor. I solved it.”

“Oh yeah, bud?” She shuffles a bit closer, her thigh grazing over his crotch; “Solved what?”

His smile fades. Damn it! How could he be so stupid as to fall for this?

He pushes her – him – back, baring his teeth in anger and disgust.

“Don’t, Shawn!” He warns, watching the faux appalled reaction on ‘Eleanor’s’ face quickly fall to mere annoyance once he’s said the name; “Don’t _ever_ do that again! Stretch me, beat me, burn me, slice me up, whatever, but don’t you _dare_ use-”

The demon disguised as a short Arizona hottie rushes towards him and kicks him square in the jaw. Shawn leans down to grab Michael’s collar and throws him across the room.

“Excuse me, you festering slug-feces? This isn’t some all-you-can eat buffet where you get to pick and choose your torture.” He leans over Michael and pins him onto his back, Eleanor’s green eyes glaring down at him with pure loathing that, despite himself, makes him flinch; “I’ve been waiting to find something to really hit those nerves of yours. And it looks like I found it! I had a hunch about you and Shellstrop for a while now…It’s good to see I wasn’t imagining things. Unlike you, imagining that she could ever fall in love with a useless cretin like yourself.”

He pries open Michael’s mouth and shoves his fingers in deep.

“Suck. Go on. Closest you will get to tasting ‘her’ again.” He moves the other hand to caress his unkept hair; “And don’t you dare bite down. You’re my pet now, Michael. You need to learn your place at last. Just pretend that I’m her, if it helps.”

No. No, it doesn’t fucking help. Every second he’s forced to look at ‘her’ face is worse than several days on the razor rack.

But he does as Shawn orders. For them. He keeps the hatred in his eyes as he lathers his tongue over her soft…No, not her fingers, don’t start. Shawn’s fingers.

He hopes his former boss tires of this new game soon.

*

It’s not a real body. It’s not supposed to need food or water or sleep. Technically, it still doesn’t. But Shawn makes sure that he endures the starvation of all those needs now.

It adds to the pain, the dryness of his throat as he’s left chained to the wall.

He remembers how the humans he tortured, so long ago, would beg for water. It would be the one word left on their lips when even their own mother’s name had been forgotten. Michael never understood the fascination until today, when a cup is raised to his fractured jaw, and his tongue responds instinctively to lap at the cooling liquid.

He opens his eyes and…oh no. Not again.

Her shining face smiles up at him behind the cup cradled in her hands; “Hey, buddy.”

Michael tries in vain to twist away from her. There’s no farther back he can go. No escape. He tries his best to look away.

“Please…I asked you not to…Anything but this!”

That hand finds his cheek again and this time, fuck it, he can’t stop the tears from falling. He’s been able to keep his emotions in check all this time. He curses himself for letting it be this easy.

He sniffs, shaking his head.

“Please…”

“Michael. It’s okay.” She reaches up to stroke his forehead; “It’s all over now. I’m here.”

She leans up on her tiptoes to kiss his cheek. He winces again.

“I’m yours, Michael.”

He sees her hands move up to the straps on her dress, peeling them off her shoulders. The skimpy little number falls away and she’s standing, bare naked and beautiful, before him. Michael’s tired eyes roll over her before he turns his head away again. That is…wrong. It might not be her but, it’s still wrong. It feels like. Violation.

He wishes he had the strength to be angry. How fucking dare he?!

Her fingers…his fingers caress his chest again as she – he! – moves up against him. He’s helpless to stop the demon from undressing him, from tearing off the tattered remains of the clothes on his suit he had once wore so neat when he first entered this room…so many years ago now.

He can’t resist how the skinsuit reacts, how his erection swells against his boxers until not-Eleanor tugs them down and frees him, before she presses herself up to him.

“Are you sure you still want me to stop?” She whispers against his ear, sliding her thigh up, her hands on his shoulders, as if ready to let him enter her there.

Oh, fork. His skin is vibrating to her touch, to her soft words.

“Please…Please…” Stop. Say the word.

But then she’s undoing his chains and bringing him down to the floor. He lays back, spent and drained from all that he’s had to endure, been willing to endure, for the sake of those he loves most. His vision blurs as he sees her climb on top of him, yellow hair framing her face as she looks down on him, eyes full of want.

He can’t let himself believe that this is real. But, oh man, it feels so real. He wishes with everything he has left that it is. She wouldn’t be so gentle, wouldn’t caress him so tenderly, if she was a demon. Surely.

His body judders as she starts to move her hips against him, his dick brushing against her wet lips, and all he wants, more than his own freedom, is to feel her wrapped around him again.

To take comfort in her.

His fingers clasp around hers on his chest.

“I solved it.” He says, again. She doesn’t respond, instead moving down to kiss him, trying to shut him up. He waits until he can gasp for air before trying again; “I solved it, Eleanor.”

“Shh, stop spoiling it!” She laughs against his nose before grinding hard against him.

He grits his teeth and tries to push her off. He feels the rage burn inside of him but the other demon is too strong, pinning his arms back, forcing him to enter her. Using him. Oh.

_I’m using you, Michael._

He can’t help but cry as she laughs, watching him crumble beneath her, taking no pleasure as he’s made to let her fuck him. Judging by the noises ‘she’ makes, Shawn has worked out how to use this female human’s suit to his own needs, he knows how to get Michael to press all the little buttons for his own suit’s satisfaction.

And he knows just how to work Michael’s up to the point it is so close to achieving bliss, only to snatch it away at the last second, sliding off and kneeing him hard in the groin.

Eleanor…Shawn…Eleanor…

It all blurs and becomes meaningless as someone, something, leans over and kisses his tears away as he curls up into a pathetic, whimpering foetal position.

“I am never going to get bored of this, Mikey.”

They leave him. They slam the door and leave him in the dark. Michael hugs his knees and bites down on his lip. Remembering.

For them, damn it. For them. For…her.

_I’m using you._

Her.

_It’s not like it meant anything, right?_

Please, no more, please.

_Oh, Michael, bud, I’m so…_

He screams into the floor.

*

Eleanor knocks on the green door.

“Hey, dude? You in there?” She doesn’t usually knock. They’ve always freely walked in and other of each other’s living spaces. It’s just what they all did. It was a family thing.

She feels the need to check he’s there first, which he confirms with a; “Of course! Come on in!”

Bright and cheery as ever. She walks in to find him still working on learning to play that guitar. He at least has the decency to put it one side this time instead of trying to force her to sit through his atrocious lyrics again. He gives her a smile.

“Hey. How’re you doing? Other than…y’know.”

“Being left alone after my soul mate literally chose to stop existing rather than spend another Bearimy with me? Yeah, not so chipper at the moment.” She confesses.

“I figured as much.” Michael offers her the other chair across the desk as he went to sit in his own one. The chair that she herself had once occupied, her loyal assistant usually perched on the desk itself or stood at her side.

He snaps his fingers to summon a plate of shrimp and two beers. Their usual private meeting snacks.

“Hey, listen. I know part of you already knows this but Chidi did not ‘choose’ to leave you.” He says to her, gently; “I spoke to Janet, he apparently discussed wanting to leave with her a long time ago but he stayed around for you. He chose to be with you, Eleanor.”

“And it sucked for him!” She shoots back, frustrated, “I mean I wish I could only see how romantic it is that he would put himself through the whole lethargic crap of being here but, shirt Michael, it still _hurt him to stay with me,_ why can’t no one understand how awful that makes me feel? Like I was being a selfish bench for all those years, keeping him with me, not noticing what was going on, how he felt!”

“But you know now. And you let him go. That’s very admirable of you, Eleanor.” Michael raises his beer to her; “Be proud of yourself. I sure am.”

She returns his smile and raises her beer too before taking a swig, then helping herself to a piece of fried shrimp.

“Y’know what? For as bummed as I am about Chidi…I have missed this.”

Michael frowns, swallowing his beer; “Missed what?”

Does she really have to explain it?

“This, dude! Me and you. Best buds, shooting the shirt, snacking on junk food. I mean how long has it been since we went to the arcade? Or did karaoke?” She asks, a yearning in the pit of her stomach that’s been there for a while, long before Chidi left. Now it feels all the more close to the surface.

Michael taps his fingers on the table, looking thoughtful.

“Last week, we all sang Sweet Caroline. Janet and Bad Janet were wasted on magnets and booed us off, then they both destroyed Wonderwall.”

Eleanor waves that answer off; “That was us, Janets and Chidi! We were out as a group. I mean…we’ve always been out as a group…until the others all decided to puss out, so to speak. Either going through the door or moving on up to higher places like Tahani. I can even see Janet outing Gen from her job, with any luck. She’d be less distracted binging tv shows and podcasts.”

“That’s what friends do though…isn’t it?” He asks, sounding almost as baffled as when he was first learning about human interaction and behaviour, back when he first truly joined their team.

“Sure, man. And it’s been amazing. It’s been…well, Heaven. But, what happened to us? Just me and you? For a long time, that’s what it always was…It’s what kept me going through all the bonkers shirt. Me and my best demon buddy.”

“I’m still here.” He gives her a wave; “Hello! I haven’t gone anywhere.”

She gives a fond chuckle at the dorky way his eyes bulge. She finds it so difficult to explain how much she’s missed him. It’s been easy to deal with, as long as Chidi was there. And before that, Tahani and Jason, the four of them all a tight enough unit that any friction between her and Michael was easy to be ignored among so much laughter.

And here he is, still willing to hang out with her, to chat with her like two old pals should have no trouble doing. Except. They were more than that, weren’t they? Especially at one point.

“I just mean, in all the time since we first came to the Good Place, have the two of us ever just hung out…just us?” She asks, struggling to look back through thousands of lifetimes worth of memoires.

The Instagram feed in her head contained ninety percent images of Chidi. Or her and Chidi. Or her and Tahani. Or her and Janet and Jason. Or, when Michael did appear, with all of them in a group. Always hanging at the back a little, barely in shot. It felt so weird. He was at home there as much of the rest of them, surely. They were practically celebrities here, without the awful paparazzi hounding their every step.

Michael shrugs, not seeming as bothered by at as she is, which stings a little. Maybe she’s overreacting, her emotions still running high after saying goodbye to Chidi.

“I guess I was just always happier watching you guys go off together…Part of me always knew you’d all go through the door. I thought it was important you all spend as much time together before you have to say goodbye. Especially you and Chidi. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I appreciate you guys always letting me and Janet waltz in as we please!”

“You’re practically our roomies, dude. It was no trouble. Except for that time you walked in on us having fun with the maple syrup.”

“It was still very nice of you to offer that afterwards with our pancakes, if a little gross.”

Eleanor laughs. See! They’re already getting back into the swing of things. But it doesn’t quite feel the same as before. There’s something about the words Michael tosses back at her in their banter that doesn’t pop like it used to. It’s friendly and warm but…missing something.

“Let’s be real though, Michael.” She puts her hands on the table; “I’ve tried asking you out for lunch or to come round to watch a movie while Chidi was doing a lecture or stay for a sleepover…And you’ve always had some excuse. In all these thousands of Bearimys we’ve all been here, you’ve never made room in your schedule for just me, have you?”

He goes to speak, opening his mouth, before reconsidering and closing it again. He glances down, morosely, at the bottle of beer in his lap.

“…I suppose not.”

Oh, good. He admits it. She wasn’t just paranoid.

She feels the tension thicken around them and, even without her bud’s ability to see in nine dimensions, she wishes she could shove it all aside and finally bridge the gap between them. It was time to say what should have been said before they even arrived here.

“You were avoiding me, weren’t you.”

He looks up, “Oh, no! Of course not, Eleanor!”

“C’mon, dude, it’s the only explanation.” She sighs, moving around the desk, this time perching herself on the edge. She swings her feet, nudging his shin with her shoe; “After what happened? I don’t blame you. I know I royally forked up…and, it hasn’t been said enough - I’m sorry, man. I’m sorry if what I did…ruined what we had.”

Michael is still unable to look at her, his cheeks flushing a little. He knows what it is she’s talking about. After all this time, it’s still as uncomfortable for him as it was for her, if not more so. He was the one who got hurt the most. He was the one who had deserved better than Eleanor could give, even just as a friend. Every time she had looked at him whenever they all spent time together, he had seemed so carefree and jovial, she was certain he was over it.

She hadn’t bothered to ask. Stupid, selfish Eleanor.

“You didn’t ruin anything, Eleanor. You apologised before. I told you then, same as now, it’s all clam chowder under the bridge.” He smiles.

Eleanor makes a face, sticking out her tongue; “Oh, no need for that blast from the past!” And they’re able to laugh again.

“I am sorry…for avoiding you, if it upset you, I…” He tells her, twiddling his thumbs on the desk.

“Hey. C’mere.” She slides of the desk and onto his lap, moving her arms around him.

He feels stiff as a board. That’s understandable. Have they had a one-on-one hug like this since that day Gen told them that their experiment was a success and they had all had that brief moment of finally winning? God, if she had known that would be the last hug they would have for centuries then she wouldn’t have let the silver doofus go.

He awkwardly moves his hands to pat her back. He needs to get back into the habit. Fair enough. She’s more or less certain that his first hug ever had been when he’d embraced her that time at the train station, when her faith in him had been confirmed to be worth it. When she knew more than anything in the world that Michael was her friend. Her best friend.

“I just hope we can get back to how it was before. I mean, c’mon, everyone else has moved on to better things. Us two losers are all that’s left!”

Michael chuckles against her ear; “Meaning I’m your last resort?”

“Don’t say it like I went through everyone else in my Watsap group before you. Just that we gotta appreciate what we have…and make up for lost time.” Eleanor pulls back, shuffling off his knee when she can feel his discomfort, but holding onto his hands; “What d’you say? Drinks tomorrow, just me and you? We show them how well we can belt out If You Wanna Be My Lover?”

“I’m hoping that’s referring to the song.” He wishes to confirm.

“Duh, yes!” She clicks her tongue, trying to avoid giving him that once over glance that she used to.

Chidi has barely passed through the door…

No. They won’t go there again. That was what caused the chasm to form between her and Michael before, putting this unspoken distance between them, almost making her feel like she didn’t know him anymore. She wouldn’t cross that line. Never again.

“All right, demon bud, see you there. And thanks for the talk. I’m glad we cleared the air.” She tells him, “We should always be honest with each other, right?”

He blinks at her, as if she caught him in some strange, seedy act. He bites his lip and nods.

“Of course,…I’ll see you tomorrow night, Eleanor. I can’t wait.”

She gives him a wink and a blast of a finger gun before leaving him to do more of his strumming. Walking through the green door, she’s able to let out a heavy sigh, as if she just came up from holding her breath under water for a thousand years. That helped. Chidi was gone, yes, but he was at peace. And now her and Michael were on proper speaking terms again.

And today she has plans to meet her father after he finally passed his test. He’s promised to take her ice skating, this time with perfect assurance that the cops won’t raid the place like when she was five. She also had enough time before then to goggle at her gorgeous calendar some more.

The old fire squid was still proving to be right. Everything was fine.

*

Time is not a good friend. Time is a thief.

It robs you of second chances. It robs you of hope. Eventually, it robs you of will.

Even Michael has his limits. He had sworn that he would endure this for the rest of eternity. He must have come as close as any being to keeping any such promise. He might be devoted to this cause, but he was a coward first and foremost. He will never be anything else.

It takes having him, disguised as Her of course, repeatedly slap and burn and molest him, always letting him rise the point of some glimmer of ecstasy, before sucker punching him with all the pain one can feel in multiple dimensions. Her perfume, once so vividly sweet, was like rotting fruit as she stayed too long, always pressed up too close, too uncomfortable. Her kisses on his skin were like splashes of acid. Whenever she caressed a finger down his bare back, her nail peeled off half an inch worth of skin.

All the time, he talks to him as Her, gets into the role of being Her until after so long of nothing else it’s difficult to remember his original torturer’s voice.

“You must have known there was never going to be any chance I would love you. I mean for starters, you know me better than anyone. I don’t love easily, do I. The fact I was able to melt my ice-cold heart enough to let Chidi in shows how special he was. But you? You’re not special, Michael. You’re nothing.”

At first, he can let it all wash off his back, limp head lolling in a daze against his shoulder. It’s not as if he cares about himself anymore to be bothered by some typical insults about how worthless he is. He knows that. It’s why he’s here. This is the only thing he’s of any worth for.

“Still thinking about me coming to save you? I know you like to day-dream. It’s a good thing you can’t fall asleep, huh. You could be torturing yourself. You did a good enough job of that when you were supposed to be hurting them. Instead, you let us weaken you up, soften you, turn you into _this_.”

This is the best he can be. The bar was set pretty low. But he rose to it.

“Truth is, no one deserves to be tortured more than you. No one else could have been more fitting to substitute all that atonement. You know the terrible things you’ve done. The tears you’ve helped shed. The bones you’ve ripped out The blood that you’ve drank like Pepsi.” She moves her hand over his ear and he’s unable to stop hearing their cries. Their screams; “I wonder how long it will take for you to be here for your pain to balance the scales of all that you caused…including to me and my friends. Oh what, did you think we’d forgiven you?”

No. No, obviously not. What he’d done was unforgivable. What he was. He was born damned. There is no redemption for him. All he could do was try, try hard enough to make it right with them, to get them to where he promised, to see them all safe. What was the point of this if they weren’t where he’d fought and bled for them to be?

For them. For them. For her. For them. For her.

Her, who is his constant waking nightmare now. Her, whose smile no longer brings the sun into his existence like it used to. Her, who teases him with a dream that he could be worthy of her love and then laughs like it’s the funniest joke in the Universe. Her, whose name was once his inspiration, is now conditioned to make him wince.

“You see, Michael. Chidi is everything you could never be. That’s why you were always so jealous of him. He was the human you dreamed you could be…for me. But you could never be anything but a gross, putrid, disgusting squid. Even my kinks have their limits, buddy.”

There’s a slither of his brain that knows she would never say these things to him. Not the real her. But when you’ve had them repeated to you countless times over the centuries, accompanied by scaldings and flayings and beatings and forced sexual submission, the mind becomes an open vat ready to take in whatever anyone is willing to pour.

He doesn’t give Shawn the satisfaction of talking back. He’s often too weak and sore from screaming to speak anyway. He hopes this is enough to provide his stupid catharsis. Release his stress so he can carry on at his not-so-new job. It’s amazing he still needs this, really.

Her fingers are prodding at his mouth again. He sucks them, not wanting to cause a fuss, letting them probe and poke against his tongue. She breaks two teeth out like rock candy.

“Good boy. I’m glad Shawn told me the truth about your deal.”

He freezes, his jaw throbbing.

What?

He looks up and sees her pop the teeth into her mouth like gumballs; “Hmm. See, it took me a while to figure it out, but I saw through the ruse eventually. I came down here and Shawn let me in on what happened. You big dumb useless shirtbag. You lied to me. You broke our trust.”

She pinches and twists the raw skin on his chest. He doesn’t look at her. He knows what she…He is trying to do. It won’t work.

“I was so mad at you, conning us again like that, making us feel guilty for leaving you here, tricking us all this time…Shawn agreed to let me have you from now on. What? Did you think if I found out the truth I would come save you?”

He whimpers as she sidles up against him, nothing but hatred in those green eyes. He shivers and looks away, trying not to fall for it, but part of him wanting her – the real her – so badly to be here that he’ll take whatever she wants to give him.

“E…E…El…Please…”

She tugs him down by his chin to kiss her. Then she laughs.

“Stupid old dink. I’ve been waiting for this payback for a very, very long time.” And it feels like it’s starting all over again.

*

He has his limits. She pushes him there. He can’t take no more.

He won’t run. He can’t go anywhere anyway, the door that’s only across the room feeling like it’s on the other side of the galaxy. But he can free himself, just a little, he can save himself a morsel of the pain she dishes out to him.

It’s a risky process. He’s never done it on a demon before. More importantly, he’s never done it to himself.

It takes a few tries. He might have erased some of vast knowledge in the process. He wouldn’t be able to tell you what it is he no longer remembers.

When he tries to remove her, he messes it up. Nothing ever works right first time.

“Goodbye, Eleanor.”

He snaps his fingers. Her name is gone. That’s something.

Her face, at least from Before, along with all Her places in his memories, are like a figure moulded out of static. The words she spoke are gone. All he knows now is the cruelty and mocking she hands out to him here. He can’t erase her entirely. She’s too tangled up with the rest of them. And he needs something to remember why he’s here. Never forget that. Her smell, her aura, her touch remains. He’s not sure if he made it any better for when She appears. It gives him less hope to fall from. If he doesn’t remember being in love then he no longer has to miss it. But the confusion is doubly sickening.

When She taunts him now, when She talks of being with him, of crushing his demonic heart, of making him believe She cared, he doesn’t quite understand. The words sting. He no longer knows why.

It takes Her a while to figure out what he’s done. She’s not happy.

The beating She gives him that day is intense. It almost smashes the fake bones of the suit as She kicks him into the wall.

“You dumbass! How dare you ruin my fun!? If I find out how to work that little trick of yours, I’ll make you remember! I’ll make you beg for me to erase Her again!”

He frowns, twitching, hearing Her boots click on the floor as She leaves him.

It doesn’t make sense. She is Her. Why did She talk in the third person? What a weird human. He wonders what he did to make Her hate him so much. He’s sorry.

*

She clinks their glasses and takes a sip, humming with satisfaction, “It doesn’t matter how many of these I have, always feels like I’m experiencing the best ever margarita for the first time!”

“I know, right?” He shares her enthusiasm, “It never gets old!”

“Good thing we solved that whole final death thing or we’d all be a bunch of zombies that not even a pitcher of our best booze could make happy.” It was almost worth her having to say goodbye to the ones she loved, so long as Heaven was a place worth spending your final eons of the universe in.

She watches Michael down his drink even quicker than her before she tops him up.

“Steady there, bud, we got the rest of the night ahead of us and then some.” She grins, “Remember when you weren’t a tequila guy?”

His cheeks pinken and he wipes his mouth; “Shows you how good they are, right?”

And she should really start to know something is wrong then. Part of her does, but she’s so glad to have this bond again that she won’t let her niggling suspicions sour it. Having Michael back at her side again had been what she needed to keep carrying on here, to not be unbelievably lost and lonely without her soul mate and close friends. He still seemed to be busier than she would like, still giving the odd excuse of Gen or Shawn or fishing with the magic panda instead of agreeing to meet up with her for a fun date. But every now and then he would indulge her.

Eleanor relishes their time together, always aware that, at any moment, she could discover what that final puzzle piece is missing from her being. The key to her opening the door to her final peace. To being able to follow after Chidi. Her wave finally allowed to crash back into the ocean, to join his.

She knows that Michael can’t follow them. And that makes her sadder than anything else, the idea of leaving him behind. He has Janet, sure, but she knows how much he adores them.

On nights like these, the possibility of her never going through the door, of staying with him forever and more, doesn’t seem too bad. At least Michael isn’t having to force himself to stay with her for her sake, not his. She can see that he’s having fun. Sometimes he appears off or says something which has an off tone she can’t place but. Well. There’s been so many years they haven’t spent as close as they were. Maybe she’s having to reconnect with him all over again.

Almost like another reboot. What was one more between old buddies?

They’re sat on the pier by the lake near her house, sharing their drinks, along with some old memories. Eleanor does most of the recollecting while Michael laughs along.

“I mean, a llama in our living room? C’mon, dude, that was so random!”

“That’s what made it fun! I dunno why, but that reboot had to be all llama themed! Everyone loved the llamas!” He tells her, chortling.

In spite of all the laughter, how freeing and easy this is, she can’t shake that niggle on the back of her neck as she watches him enjoy more of that drink.

“What about that time they threw a grenade into our house, remember how freaked out Chidi was?”

His brow creases a little before he laughs again; “Oh, yeah! We all took bets on how long before it went off. I think Gunner won and got his wish to bite someone on the next reboot.”

She blinks, feeling the air go colder than she’s ever felt it in the Good Place before.

“Michael. There was no grenade.”

He almost chokes on his drink. He stares at her, his mouth open; “…You sure? It sounds like something I would…Why did you make that up then?”

Because something is forked up here and she can’t put her finger on it.

She shakes her head; “Just testing your memory, old timer.”

“Oh, very funny. Even a great demon like me gets a messed-up noggin after a billion years or two, Eleanor, it’s nothing to make fun of. Don’t mock the elderly or you’ll lose enough points to have to retake the tests!”

Now she feels guilty. She gives him a smile and reaches to tug at his collar; “Come on. You don’t look a day over six million.”

He blushes again. Is she being unreasonable to doubt? After all this time, after all their promises, was that trust that bad been between them still cracked?

Eleanor shuffles closer to him until their knees knock. She feels his heat rising beside her. Is that nerves or the flaming tentacles itching for release under the skin? She rests her hand on his knee.

“You know…there is one thing I’ve been missing a lot since Chidi left that the Good Place isn’t able to provide at my wish. I mean, it could find me something, but it would be the equivalent to going down to Ann Summers. I kinda need the real thing. Something meaningful…” Her fingers slide towards up his thigh, “You get me, bud?”

He watches her, taking a moment to realise, before he shuffles back and moves her hand away.

“Yeah, uhm…I’m sorry, Eleanor. I wish I could help you there, but…It doesn’t feel right.”

“Why not?” She frowns, “Now is as good as any, right? Chidi’s not here anymore. It’s been what, fifty or sixty years since he went through that door now? I’ve been holding back a lot of tension in that time, buddy. You were always happy to help me relieve it before...”

He shakes his head, turning away from her.

“That was a long time ago. I don’t…think of you that way, anymore. I like you a lot, Eleanor, as a friend, as a human companion, but I don’t feel any-.”

“Bullshirt!” She gets to her feet; “You told me how you feel about me! You were the one who said it was more than just a crush on your part! Did you forget? Did it get replaced by some fake memory of you tossing a grenade at us?”

Michael snaps his glass away and gets to his feet, straightening his jacket.

“I should go.” He tries to brush past her but Eleanor grabs his arm.

“No, you listen to me! What is with you?! You are going to tell me why you’ve been so weird all this time!”

“If I’ve been weird all this time then why do you suddenly care now, after a thousand lifetimes? Are you that horny? Damn it, humans can still be so disgusting.”

Eleanor feels the foundations beneath her tremble. She wonders if the planks on the pier are about to snap. They no longer feel sturdy enough to hold her.

“You weren’t saying that when you were eating me out on the desk in your office! Or when I invited you to sleep round, because I was lonely while Chidi lost his memory, and you kept me ‘warm’ in bed, in more ways than one!” She hurls back at him, as if she should really need to remind him.

He reddens the more she brings up their intimate moments together, unable to meet her eyes.

He waves his hand; “As I said, that was another time! We ended it! Let’s not go back there.”

“You know there’s only one reason I ended it the way I did. And he’s gone now. I should never have hid it from him. I mean, I’m pretty sure he worked it out anyway but, it was wrong to let that come between the three of us. I can’t fix that…but there’s no reason for us not to be as close as we were.”

She refuses to believe that he’s not as starved for her touch, for her kiss, as she is of his arms around her, of his lips on her nape, his words of love and devotion grazing her ear.

Eleanor dares to move forward, to initiate that kiss. There’s not even the slightest reciprocation before Michael shoves her back.

“Okay, that’s it! That’s it! I quit! I give up! I can’t do this anymore!”

His tone shifts. His voice is the same but something about his accent and inflections shift, losing their firm edge, their Michael-ness. He sounds like an actor demanding the director calls Cut! On a scene. Eleanor glances around to make sure there are no hidden cameras.

She steps back as Michael rubs at his chest to calm himself.

“Can’t do what? Can’t touch me? Is it that unbearable for you, all of a sudden?”

“Oh, unholy Ba’al, all these years, and you are still as self-centred as the first damn reboot! For once, this is not about you!” He rounds on her; “I’m beginning to think all this time in the Good Place has reverted you to what you are the first time he welcomed you to the fake one!”

He…? Not ‘I’?

Eleanor feels sick. It’s more than just one too many margaritas.

“What the fork are you talking about?” 

“I’m not Michael!”


	2. For Him

She drops her glass. It doesn’t shatter. No risk of that or any harm coming to them here. Not the physical kind anyway.

Eleanor blinks, her stomach plummeting.

“…What did you say?”

“I said I’m not Michael.” The demon, her demon, tells her, fuming like a kettle that’s been left on the stove for millennia; “It’s a Michael Suit, okay! I took his place to come here with you guys! You haven’t spoken to the real Michael since before Shawn agreed to the experiment!”

She blinks again, everything feeling all too bright, the heavenly lakeside meadow spinning around her.

“That’s…This is a joke. It has to be a joke.” She bursts out, forcing laughter for the second time after Michael has confessed something to her; “Good one, bud! Poor taste but you got me.”

“Oh, for fork’s sake.” He grimaces.

‘Michael’ makes an unzipping motion. Within two seconds, he disappears, the image collapsing in on itself into nothing, revealing the real figure behind the mask. Shorter. Dumpy. One very tired looking and annoyed Glenn stands before her.

She feels the earth start to shake again. Sickness and horror turning to rage.

“You…?” She gawps, hoping this is all a cruel dream, the first and only nightmare ever experienced in the Good Place, due to some random glitch that Janet can fix and she can get Michael back.

This won’t be true. It can’t be.

Glenn lets out a heavy sigh and throws up his hands in defeat.

“Yeah, hi, remember? I know I looked a bit different last time, being a splatter of goo on your friend’s wallpaper. Gotta appreciate the irony a little bit, huh? Considering what I came to reveal to you all the last time, even though I was wrong that time. I guess that’s why he chose me, other than being the only real decent actor he ever had in his experiment.”

“No…No, forking way, there is no way that you were Michael this whole?!” Eleanor growls, pointing her finger at him; “I would have forking known it wasn’t him! I would have seen…something!”

The rounder demon gives a shrug; “You clearly weren’t looking hard enough. Or maybe you had enough distractions not to care.”

“Shut up! Just shut up!” She yells at him, having to hold back from rushing at him and tossing him into the lake.

He holds up his palms, his expression softening.

“Look, Eleanor, I really don’t mean to upset you. I’ve spent so much time with you guys that, I honestly do care about you, even came to think of you as-.”

“Friends?! You’ve got to be kidding me! You’ve been pretending to be a friend we already had, you deck! What the fork happened to you being one of the ‘reformed’ ones, wanting to not be evil anymore? Because this…This is as forking sadistic as it gets!”

She’s ready to shout to the skies that this is the Bad Place all over again. They fooled her for a lot longer this time but there’s no possible way anything in Paradise can mess with her head and get her riled in like this is.

She starts to advance on him, fists clenched at her sides.

“Where is Michael? What have you done to him?!”

“No, wait, wait, you don’t understand, Eleanor! Listen!” Glenn quakes and backs off, shrinking a little in her wake, “Michael was not taken against his will! He chose this! He asked me to pretend to be him and to join your group, make you all think he was here.”

The story coming out of his mouth only became crazier with each word.

Eleanor shakes her head, feeling hot and dizzy; “Why…Why would he do that?! How could he…?”

“It was the only way to get Shawn to agree to the deal.” Glenn explains and Eleanor’s jaw drops.

She covers her mouth in horror. She remembers the offer they made. She remembers Michael stepping forward with them. He would never allow them to be tortured unless he was taken as well. It was all of them or nothing. That’s how it was supposed to be. Until he…He went to talk to Shawn alone.

Eleanor stumbles towards the edge of the lake and vomits. It tastes like skittles.

Glenn moves his hand to touch her shoulder.

“Don’t you forking touch me again!” She screams and gets to her feet, rainbow puke staining her lips as she gets in his face.

All the time she’s spent with him. Trying to reconnect. These little light-hearted dates to try and ease them back into what they used to be. Something more than friends. Something real.

And before that? How much time he spent with all of them together?

How he helped Tahani get her job?

 _“He gave me his bow-tie! The one he wore when we first met! Bless. I do wish he’d given me a hug before he left but I guess we all have things to be getting on with. I should really be brewing this antimatter for Vicky instead of sending voice messages.”_ She had left that for Eleanor after her first day. Nothing made sense.

“You can’t…You can’t have been him! You knew so much shirt about us….”

“I had a lot of practice before when I made the suit, I was supposed to be the one to wear it, until Vicky swooped in. And then, when Michael asked me to take his place, he filled me in on everything about you guys since you came to the afterlife. He made a bunch of charts, they were really helpful, I think I almost fooled myself until you got all too touchy-feely there. That’s one part of the role I refused to do! No offence, just not into humans.”

Neither was Michael. Or so he claimed. He’d proven that to be a great, fat lie.

Eleanor grits her teeth, feeling the tears stinging on her face. She swallows the bitterness, the regret and shame of having been fooled all this time, before rounding on Glenn again.

“Where is Michael? Tell me, dude, or I will summon Janet here and get her to blow you into a thousand pieces all over again – and this time we won’t bother to vacuum you up, you can wriggle yourself back together, faker!”

He clenches his jaw; “I’m not supposed to tell you.”

“You’ve already told me. You might as well spill the rest of it out or I’ll get the Judge to find out herself and she decides what to do with you. I don’t care if Shawn goes back on his deal, I don’t care about anything else in this whole forking Universe right now…Just. Tell me. _Where’s Michael?!”_

*

Her fingers glide through his hair. He wants to lean against Her touch but knows he has to wait. Everything requires permission. He just wants to rest.

She hums as She touches him, strokes him, that smile dominating every cell of his suit.

“You love Her more than anything, don’t you?” She whispers and he nods. He doesn’t remember who She is. But, idiot that he is, he didn’t manage to erase those feelings. Just the reasoning behind them.

She’s less angry today. He wishes She could be like this every time She appears.

When She tugs on a white tuft of hair, he knows She is letting him move into Her hand. It’s just a touch. A tiny preview image of a painting he will never see again. But he is very grateful.

“Such a shame She left you here.”

It’s a relief when She isn’t hurting him, using him, only tossing him these scraps of affection, of warmth, to remind him what he’s missing. His face is always wet when She leaves him and he comes close to begging for pain if it means She will stay. Don’t leave him alone. Please.

Come back. Come back. Come back.

*

“Good morning.”

She stretches her neck out, feeling against the long fingers massaging between her shoulder blades. Oh, that’s good. Good demon. She feels his arm move its way around her and tug her close as she wakes, his warm body pressing against hers.

She rolls onto her side and gazes up at him, grinning that he somehow managed to keep his glasses on through all that.

“Morning.” She replies, still dozy, fingers fluttering against his chest while his hand moves down to her hip; “Well. This was not how I expected to wake up.”

“It’s not quite what I pencilled in for my morning either but I’m not complaining about missing a check in with Brent.” He smiles down at her, propping himself up on his elbow while she rests back into the pillow.

He leans down to kiss her, far more confident than he was the night before, now he probably knows what to do. The first time had been almost like a shy, uncertain college boy. It was adorable. Hilarious, but adorable. The boy’s all grown up and earned his big demon pants now.

Not that they’re wearing anything, except for Michael with his glasses.

“I guess we did it. We really crossed over the Friendzone boundary, huh.”

He frowns, worried; “Does this mean we’re no longer friends?”

“What? No, of course we are, dummy.” She laughs, lightly slapping his front; “I just meant…the whole strictly platonic thing. We’ve been dancing close to that line for a while and last night I’m sure it vanished. But nothing has to change. I mean, the wreck I was last night, you finding me all crying and lonely, like a Bridget Jones cosplay…I needed that sympathy sex and, as much as I would have appreciated you being a gentleman and all, I appreciate the sex a LOT more.”

“I noticed. Sorry it took me a while to get the hang of it, or I would have prepared. All that time we spent in those porn movie locations!”

Eleanor laughs again, a finger stroking his jawline; “Oh, bud, for a billion-year-old demon who has never touched a human woman before? You could put a bunch of sex-charged frat boys to shame with what you gave me last night. Definitely not bad for a first timer.”

“Oh! That is reassuring. I’m so glad you enjoyed it as much as I did.” He sighs with relief; “I mean I’d always been curious and expected the sweat and the stickiness but I never expected having sex to be so…Wowser.” He exclaims and she laughs aloud for the first time in weeks.

She curls into his arms and he holds her in blissful silence for a short time. His fingers stroke up and down her side as she nuzzles his neck. They will need to get moving eventually. Tahani or someone else will be knocking on Eleanor’s door, asking what the plan is for today. Janet might even pop in unexpectedly when she fails to find Michael in his office.

Eleanor doesn’t worry about that. For these next twenty minutes, the weight of the cosmos can be lifted from her shoulders. They’re far too comfy snuggled in the crook of Michael’s armpit.

The reformed demon has been at her side, protecting her and encouraging her, for months now. She had come so very close to losing him, to testing that trust she had placed in him more than he deserved, seen him go to Hell and back for their friend, terrified he wouldn’t return. Now he was back, and she needed more than just a best bud, just a loyal assistant or guardian devil. She’d had an itch. Not just down there, though that was dying to be scratched too, but also in her soul. A missing piece that only the feeling of being held and kissed and touched by a lover could fill.

She can’t help but wonder if Tahani would have provided the same need had she gone to her for comfort instead? It’s a shame they didn’t all crash at her mansion.

“Are you sure this is okay? What we did?” Michael asks when they finally get up and dressed; “I’m still working out human emotions. Does this count as cheating or is it like when Ross and Rachel were clearly on a break?”

“Break, dude. And even less ambiguous because Chidi and I haven’t been together for months. He chose to forget me and he knew what was likely to happen being around Simone again – and, behold, it did! As far as I’m concerned, that means we’re talking a break until he gets his memory back. Until then, all bets are off. If I wanna find some lovin’ like he gets to have with her then fair’s fair, right?”

It might be that her words come out in a bit of a bittersweet jumble, still frustrated after having watched her soul mate dance with his new 'soul mate' so romantically the previous evening. Michael doesn’t look all too convinced, either way.

“I don’t want to come between you and Chidi. But also, I don’t wanna lose you…”

“Hey, hey. No more talking about shirt like that.” She tells him, moving in close; “That ain’t never gonna happen. We’re a team, Michael. We’re stronger than ever before after the shirt we’ve gone through. We just…are free to take on a few extra activities together now. Like, racquetball. And I’m pretty sure last night was thirteen-love!”

“There are multiple things wrong with the analogy you just made because I know you don’t understand any sport that isn’t wrestling. But I’m just grateful nothing has been ruined between us. That’s my greatest fear.”

She raises an eyebrow; “More than Shawn retiring your ash if we fail?”

“That’s in the top three, along with the girl from that Small Wonder show.” He says with a shudder.

“Well, I dunno about the creepy robot kid but, you can stop worrying about losing me or us failing. I’m more confident than ever, buddy. We’re gonna ace this and the six of us will be flying to the Good Place in style. And I promise you, if any of those angels has a problem with me bringing my favorite demon to Heaven, they can suck it.”

Michael smiles, hand moving to his chest, clearly touched by the sentiment. She means it. After everything he’s done for her, including ‘helping’ her last night at one of her lowest points, she would give him the moon if he wanted, even though he could just as easily design his own. She’d think of something. Anything to make sure the big goof knew how precious he was.

*

When the door opens, he is curious what mood She will be in today. Will She be angry? She usually is. She usually loves to toss him about, burn and twist and whip and take, until he’s a pink and blue mess on the floor. Or it might be a day when She’s soft, when She goes slow and teases him, letting him believe the lie that he’s wanted, only for a few moments, before She drops him with Her words or a literal shove, like the other day when She made him press her face to Her bare breasts.

“I solved it,” he murmurs as She walks closer to him, except…

It’s not Her. It’s been so long since anyone else entered that he feels as though he nearly forgot.

The man he barely remembers as his former boss stands over him, dressed in his dark suit, hands in his pockets. He has an odd look on his face that doesn’t make sense. He’s nearly always angry, even though he doesn’t think he’s heard him shout before. Always so monotone, so calm and precise, direct to the point.

This time he looks down at his victim with something soft, almost regretful, in his eyes. He blinks up at this weird Shawn.

“I solved it.”

“Mike. I’m shutting this down today.” He informs him, as if it were a simple run-of-the-mill firing between boss and employee; “Truth is, I no longer get any gratification out of our time together. And I thought maybe I needed to switch it up, but in reality? All the time I’ve spent retrofitting the Bad Place, seeing the results, watching these…humans grow and learn and get better. I realise now. You were right. You were always right.”

He frowns, struggling to grasp words or their meaning.

“I solved it?”

“I think you did, old friend. Old school torturing just doesn’t give the same buzz that it used to. These new techniques, using a humans anxieties and shortcomings to encourage them to improve…it does bring a strange satisfaction I never thought I’d feel in the same way pulling out someone’s spine did.” Shawn explains.

He winces, hearing something about spines and worrying his back will be what is hurt today. He curls back against the wall, keeping his head down.

“I sincerely apologise that it took me this long and that you had to pay such a high price for me to have a chance to understand.” Shawn sounds as though he’s giving one of those company apologies along the lines of ‘we are sorry you felt that way’; “I want you to know…Even though no one else, aside from maybe Glenn, will know what went on here, I will always remember your sacrifice.”

Sacrifice. Sacrifice yourself. That’s how you solve it.

“I did think about letting you go. It’s been turning over in my mind for months. But,” the boss sighs, almost mournful; “I’m sure you understand, if this scandal broke out, it would cause far more chaos than the Good and Bad Place could cope with. My reputation, my role here, would be on the chopping block if my little private activities got out. And I know you wouldn’t want that for me, not for your oldest friend, would you? You would want me running things the best I can, so your pain wasn’t for nothing.”

There’s moisture on his eyes that doesn’t leave when he blinks. The words take a while to soak into his torn and tattered head. He nods, hoping it’s the right answer.

He remembers ‘friend’. He had a few, didn’t he? That’s why he’s here. For them.

He has to stay for them. Forever.

Shawn’s hand smooths over his hair; “Look at yourself, Mike. There’s nothing left of you anymore, is there? Imagine how heartbroken your humans would be to see you in this state, to have to look after you, like this. They’re in the Good Place, they have no cares or concerns anymore, it would be a real bummer for them, wouldn’t it. We’ll just keep this on the down low, for their sakes.”

He nods, eyes leaking at the blunt words that will soon entomb him away for the rest of time.

“You’re lucky that you can’t sleep. You won’t have to dream about them. Just, try to rest. It’s all you need to do now, Michael. For them. Stay here and rest. Let our shame be buried here with you. Make me proud.”

Shawn gives him one last pat on the head before walking off.

The door shuts. He stares, longingly, at it for an age before it becomes clear that it won’t open. A twisted part of him wishes he had got to say goodbye to Her again, even if she slapped him for it.

“I solved it.”

He whispers the words that are his only remaining companion, letting his head roll back against the steel wall that’s all that’s surrounded him. They are safe. They are safe.

*

He’s in a meeting right now, they’re informed as soon as they arrive. Not that they give a shirt. Janet flings open the door with a swish of her wrist, marching in with Eleanor at her side, keeping up with her despite her shorter legs, the two of them looking as though they were walking into a battlefield. That’s what they’re prepared for.

Eleanor had been more than tempted to bring an axe with her. Janet reminded her that she might not be a girl or a robot but she was definitely a weapon of mass destruction if need be.

“If we’re finished with discussing the trials, I would like to move on to Item Seven-.” Gen is saying to the other reps as the two of them enter.

The faces glance at them in vague curiosity as they walk in unannounced. Eleanor ignores them, heading straight over to Shawn and grabbing him by the collar.

“Where the fork is Michael?!”

“Woah, woah, easy there, Dog the Bounty Hunter!” The Judge warns, raising her hand; “Put the demon down and explain what you’re doing crashing my meeting?”

Eleanor doesn’t let go.

“Tell her. Tell her what you did.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about!” Shawn denies.

“Don’t try to lie, dude. Glenn already confessed to everything.” Janet glowers down at him; “We know about the switch, about the suit, about yours and Michael’s deal. Tell us where to find him! The real him!”

“Look, I can honestly tell you, I haven’t seen Michael in about a good two hundred years, give or take.” Shawn raises his hands.

Gen frowns; “He was here for last week’s meeting. So where you.”

Shawn’s face falls. Busted.

Janet grabs the back of his head and pushes it hard onto the table with a crack, causing everyone else to jump out of their seats.

“Tell me where our friend is, or I will beat your ash ten times worse than I did the last time. Got it?!” She growls against his ear, more terrifying than any old Bad Janet could have dreamed of being, her closest friend’s safety and freedom on the line.

Eleanor folds her arms and waits, part of her hoping he dares to invite a lashing from Janet. Otherwise she will be more than happy to deal one out herself.

*

He puts a hand to the back of her dress as they walk towards Mindy’s for what could be the final time. The others walk on ahead and they have a few minutes before they’re due to meet with the accountant.

“Hey, how’re you holding up?” Michael wants to know, reading the stress levels buzzing around her like thumps from an amp.

She turns to him, catching her breath; “A little nervous. But riding that buzz, as well as that pitcher of booze, it’s keeping me babbling and getting all sweaty, which I’m doing right now, aren’t I? Aren’t I?”

He places his hands on her arms, giving her a smile.

“Relax. We’ll find out the results soon. I think we did pretty good, all things considered. And that final play? Oh, wow, that was the funnest thing I’ve ever done in any experiment! Such a terrific idea on Jason and your part!”

Eleanor giggles; “It was so great, wasn’t it! I really nailed that line of yours, and getting to do the evil laugh, I can’t tell you how long I’ve wanted to do my own evil laugh!”

“And my line when I said it was just for fun, you were terrifying!” He congratulates her; “I have to admit, it’s a good thing Chidi was there or I might have had to pin you down onto the desk.”

“Look at you, horndog.” She winks and bumps his arm; “Good thing he was there or I might have let you.”

She stands close to him, barely a few inches of air between them, as he grins down at her. Demon Eleanor was a definite turn on. But Human Eleanor is the one he adores more than anything else in the cosmos.

“Thank you for being there for me, through all of this. I dunno what I would’ve done without you.” She clasps his face and pulls him down for a kiss while the others are out of sight. His hands move to her back and he partly responds back, distracted a little by the concern that they might be late.

It’s a short but heated kiss, enough to make him want to loosen his bow-tie. Eleanor sighs and caresses his face.

“What a night, huh. I couldn’t think of a better way to end this!” She leans up to kiss him again before pulling back and racing to catch up with Tahani.

Michael is left, frozen, her lipstick smudged on the side of his mouth.

He wipes his chin with the back of his hand, removing the evidence before the others see. Before they have to wake Chidi up. The end? Of the experiment or…?

*

She braces herself for the worst when Shawn leads them down one of the many now unmanned corridors in the old Bad Place holding cells.

“As I said, it’s been a long while since I last paid him a visit.” The head demon stops in front of what first appears to be just a plain section of the wall half-way along the hall. It isn’t until he points to it that Janet is able to find the door, pulling it out of whatever dimension he hid it out of perception.

Eleanor curses him again. He even tried to hide all evidence of where Michael was? Bury him forever in an unmarked grave? She is constantly having to hold herself back from tearing into Shawn. As Janet constantly reminded her, a firm hand on her wrist, the priority right now was getting Michael out of there. Getting Michael home.

When the door is made visible again and Janet opens it, the two of them stand there for what feels like an age, Eleanor expecting a pool of demon blood to come rushing out at their feet like that scene from the Shining. Or for there to be chains or fire or Vicky singing on the radio.

It’s rather startling to just see a small, plain room with no walls or furniture but still relatively clean. No blood stains on the walls. No filth on the floor. No meat hooks or shackles.

Just one white haired figure sat huddled in the corner, still dressed in slacks and a light pink shirt, bow-tie loose around his collar. They don’t even look torn. It isn’t until Janet goes over and Eleanor watches Michael’s reaction that she knows that this torture he’s endured has barely been physical. If it was, all signs of it were removed a long time ago, any of his wounds regenerated. Her Michael would be leaping to his feet and saying how wonderful it was to see them all again, wrapping the two of them in his great, long arms. He would be all words and ghosting hands, full of questions and open ears for all that he had missed.

The Michael who faces Janet is hunched over, hands quivering, muttering words she can’t hear from this distance. He’s staring at Janet, his Janet, like she’s a long-lost face he needs to remember, and when he does, he’s hesitant to cling to her.

Janet rarely cries. Even when Jason left, Eleanor had caught her looking a little morose, like she wished he could be there for a certain moment, but it would quickly fade as she lost herself in some old memory with him stored in her void. Eleanor can see her eyes watering, hear her sentences break, as she recognises the mental harm that’s been done to her oldest friend. That’s why Eleanor had let the not-robot go first, she knew that Janet felt as guilty as she did for not realising, in all these hundreds of Bearimys, that the Michael who was with them was not their beloved demon. On the way, Janet had made a dark joke about this was how he wanted to make it up for not realising Bad Janet took her place for a month, only times it by a bajillion. She had clearly hated saying it before the words left her mouth.

“You were really just gonna leave him here?” Eleanor turns, speaking in a low voice to Shawn standing to the side of the door. Jackass can’t even look in and see what he’s done.

“I don’t need to answer to you. I required a cathartic outlet to agree to your proposal, Michael was happy to provide that outlet. It was a fair contract.”

“It’s sick!” She hisses at him; “If you needed to hurt him so much, why did you stop it?”

He shrugs; “Like I said in the chambers. I. Moved. On. We all did, Miss. Shellstrop, didn’t we?”

A cold draft hits her. This place has always felt both too chilly and too hot all at once. She turns to look back, seeing that Janet has managed to help Michael get to his feet, unused knees buckling a little. Janet coaxes him to lean against her, letting him put his arm around her. It’s a good thing they’re more or less the same height. Had Eleanor gone in first, Michael might have toppled the both of them.

She puts on her best smile and walks into the room.

“Hey there, buddy! Hey-!”

She reaches her hands out and starts towards him, ready to give him a hug to end all hugs and help get him a million dimensional planes away from this place, once and for all.

Michael reacts as if she just pulled out a flaming sword.

He moans in fright and stumbles back, half clinging to Janet, looking away from Eleanor and shaking all over.

“No! No! Not…Not Her!” He pants, trembling terribly, “She…She hurts. Janet. Janet, She…She makes it hurt…Always hurt…”

“It’s okay. It’s okay, Michael,” Janet does her best to calm him, cupping his hands in hers.

Eleanor doesn’t take another step, Michael’s fear of her shattering her heart.

Janet rubs her friend’s arm, gently shushing him, before turning to give Eleanor an apologetic look, gesturing with her head that it’s probably best that she not get too close to Michael. For now.

Motherfucker!

She turns on her heel and leaves the room, finding Shawn and suckering him in the jaw with enough force to make him stumble back, even with her puny human strength. That’s how fired up she is right now. That last twist of the knife was what tipped her over the edge.

“You bastard! What the fuck did you do?!” She tries not to scream at him in case it frightens Michael more than she has already.

Shawn rubs at his jaw, his smile reforming at Eleanor’s barely controlled anger.

“Is this amusing to you?!” She growls.

He shakes his head; “Forgive me, it’s just been a while since I was able to rile a human. And you, Eleanor Shellstrop, the reason behind all of this…It does tickle the naughty bitch inside me to see you go primal.”

“What? So everything you did to him was to get to me?!”

“Don’t flatter yourself. It’s merely serendipity I managed to find a way to torture the both of you while only intended to torture one.” Shawn explains; “You want to know how I did it?”

She doesn’t. But she needs to. She nods, her jaw set.

Shawn makes a ‘zipping’ motion and disappears before her, being replaced with a reflection of herself, except wearing different clothes. Her favorite black dress, her hair tied up, scarlet lipstick applied.

Eleanor reels back; “Well…that’s fucking creepy.”

“Do you like it? We had this one in storage for months, I wasn’t intending on using it to start…But, boy, did it turn out to be effective. Way more than any of the scorpions and wasps. I almost think he was starting to make friends with those.” She sees herself roll her eyes in disgust; “Then I whipped this little number on. And all that fight just went out of him. I couldn’t make him beg for me to stop before I wore this, before I touched him as you…talked to him as you… _felt_ him.”

Eleanor shakes her head, her stomach ready to lurch again.

“No. No, you didn’t. You…You used my body to…” Oh. God.

Her Shawn-copy smirks back; “Don’t worry. He enjoyed some of it, which was more than he was gonna get out of you again, let’s face it. I _made sure_ he enjoyed it.”

“Fuck.”

“It turns out that no one could torture Michael…more than you.”

Eleanor grabs ‘herself’ by the forearms and slams her into the wall. Everything else in the world goes dark except what is targeted in front of her. Her own face, grinning maliciously back at her, thrilling at the pain she’s caused, what she’s continuing to cause. It’s like staring into a time travelling mirror. She bares her teeth, wanting to slap Shawn-her into next Bearimy.

The more ferocious she lashes out, the more it seems to excite Shawn, whose joy is sparkling in her own eyes.

“Don’t beat yourself up over it, sweetheart.” He mocks her, “It only took what? Several thousand Bearimys for you to realise he was gone? And only after the rest of your friends had left, after your dear Chidi vanished out of existence, that you tried to turn to your reformed demon daddy and realised he was never truly there to begin with? He never mattered for you enough to notice before there was no one else? And they call me a monster.”

Eleanor is silent.

“Admit it. It sure would feel great to punch yourself right now, huh. Go on. I’m giving you an outlet. After all, I owe you.” Shawn laughs again. Her laugh.

It takes everything for her to let go and step back, Chidi’s voice of reasoning in her head. He’s not worth it. He only wants her to torture ‘herself’ again. That’s always the M.O. No more.

“Take that thing off. Go away. I can’t wait to hear what the Judge decides to do with you.” She says, as steady as she is capable of being right now.

Shawn unzips and looks a little less gleeful now that he’s been reminded of the consequences of all of this. He slinks away, looking ready to start jogging before two Bad Janets appear at the corner and grab him at each arm, hauling him off to who knows where. Eleanor doesn’t care. She knows whatever punishment he gets will be some form of rehabilitation. As it is for everyone now. Well, humans at least. With any luck, she hopes, they will decide to go for the old-fashioned brutal methods with him. She wants _justice_.

Even with everything that she’s learned, all the lessons about ethics and morals she’s absorbed and helped to teach over her long existence, suddenly it feels as though knowing the one who hurt her and her friend is suffering is the only thing that will heal the gaping wound in her heart.

She runs her hands over her face, trying not to think of all the things Shawn did to Michael…in her body. How it made perfect sense that he would be terrified of her face.

She hovers at the doorway to the cell, listening in on Janet talking to Michael, using soft and simple phrases.

“I solved it.”

“Yeah, I know, Michael. But it’s over now, you don’t need to be here anymore. We’re gonna take you home now, ‘kay? Your new home, I should say. In the real Good Place. You’ll be safe there and we’re gonna take care of you. Me and Eleanor. Is that okay?”

There’s a pause and Eleanor assumes he’s too broken to communicate at first, before she hears that slightly hushed, nervous voice speak.

“That sounds wonderful…Janet. I can’t wait. Just. One question. Who’s Eleanor?”

*

“Did I do something wrong?” He asks her, outside the Judge’s office, when they have a moment to breath as she takes a break from marbleizing Janets to find that remote.

Eleanor turns, frowning; “What?”

“Just now, in Janet’s void, I went to hold your hand and you shrugged me off.”

“Did I? Oh, I didn’t notice.”

“You said ‘get off’.”

“Look, dude, now is really not the time okay?! Sometime soon, the Judge is gonna find that button and everything will be wiped out! Then what will any of this matter?”

“We have time now. I just wanna know if I did something to upset you? Is it Chidi? Were you not happy with how I brought him back, because I could try again? Maybe tone down the new zest he has?”

Eleanor shakes her head; “No, dude, Chidi is perfect. It’s just…You gotta stop all that stuff now that he’s awake, okay? The touching and…all that. If we get through this then I’ll talk to him about what happened while he was gone, maybe, but right now I can’t deal with that on top of all this shirt. It’s over, okay? I don’t need it anymore.”

Michael blinks at her, looking far younger and more naïve than his older appearance would suggest. He’s never been dumped before. Hell, he’s never even had a….Not girlfriend. Whatever she was to him.

An Eleanor. She was his first and only Eleanor.

“…Need it? You make it sound like it was a drug I was hitting you up with.”

“Well, I mean it kinda was, it was fun! It was great, like what I imagine healthy people feel after they’ve been to the gym. It helped me get through this. But it wasn’t serious, we both knew that. We knew it was going to end once…”

She stops talking when she’s finally able to read the look on Michael’s face. When she clearly realises that no, the both of them clearly did not know what she just said.

“I mean…It’s not like it meant anything, right? I didn’t think it needed saying.”

It did. It would have softened this bullet wound to his gut a lot more.

She looks at him, wearily, the longer he doesn’t speak; “Michael. Did it…?”

It doesn’t need saying. The look in his eyes says those three words for him.

Eleanor covers her mouth.

“Oh, wow, uhm. Oh, Michael, bud, I am so…so sorry, man, if I’d known I would never…”

She would never have touched him if he had told her his true feelings. She only wanted something that meant absolutely nothing except two old friends forking each others brains out. No strings.

“C’mon, dude, don’t look like that! Whatever feelings you had, or think you have for me, just…toss them out, okay! I’m _seriously_ not worth it!” She deflects with self-loathing, “I mean, look at me? Look what I did….I’m using you! I…used you to make me feel better while Chidi was gone…Because I thought you felt the same! I thought you understood! Did I seriously give the impression that, once he was back, I was gonna leave him for…?”

Michael shakes his head before her words cut any deeper.

“I thought….I thought maybe we’d…work something out, I dunno.” He doesn’t know how human relationships always work. And Eleanor is one of those humans who seems to defy every boundary set by society’s laws as opposed to what feels good.

She laughs, a nervous laugh, but it’s enough to hurt. It’s all a joke as far as she’s concerned. His feelings are a joke.

“Trust me, man, I wouldn’t say no to the odd fun toss-and-turn but, we know Chidi is a one woman guy, he’s not gonna be into that. Oh, man, I feel so shirty for leading you on like this, Michael, I…” She looks up at the clock; “Fork. We’re almost out of time.”

“You’re right.” He agrees.

She moves close and reaches her hand out, looking as though she’s going to hold his hand, before moving it back; “Listen. Bud. I promise that we will sort this all out once the human race is no longer in danger. You mean the world to me, honest. But, you gotta realise…It’s always gonna be Chidi.”

“I know.” He was never going to make her choose, he’s not sure what he thought; “Don’t worry. I have one last trick up my sleeve. I just need to have a word with Shawn.”

“Okay.” Eleanor wrings her hands together as he turns around; “Hey…Michael?”

He turns to her, trying not to reveal the fact that he’s taking what might be his final look at her, taking a photograph in his mind to cherish for the eternity of torment to come, if Shawn agrees.

She smiles at him; “We’re gonna be good. Right? Me and you?”

He returns the smile, the last Bon Jovi song he remembers the two of them singing drunkenly together at the bar ringing fittingly in his head.

“Always.”

*

There isn’t really a ‘home’ for Michael when they get to the Good Place. His office is hardly a comfy place to rest up after an eternity of torture and, besides, it was Glenn’s. For all the lies he had told and all the deceit, he’d had good reasons, and hadn’t even done a bad job being a ‘fake Michael’ all this time, for both the Good Place and being there for their group as their Michael would have. Janet also pointed out that no one anywhere noticed Glenn was gone for all that time. That had to suck.

Jason’s house vanished when he passed through the door. It’s not as if Janet needed it to stick around when she has a copy of it in her void. Tahani took her house with her to the new Architects dimension.

All that’s left is Eleanor’s and Chidi’s place. Eleanor’s. The far more comfortable and less clown infested version of the house Michael had designed for her.

This made things difficult at first, considering just the sight of her being close sent Michael into a panic attack. She lets him stay on the sofa. She would let him have her bed but Janet confirms again that he can’t sleep. It’s a nice enough change for him to no longer be sat huddled on a cold floor in the dark. That’s the best they can do for him right now, as his mind slowly starts to readjust, to realise he’s no longer trapped there.

He enjoys sitting and watching tv shows, preferring it when Janet stays close, her hand holding his at all times. She ignores the calls and requests she gets from other residents, putting herself on indefinite sabbatical. Michael is the resident who requires her care most, she tells Eleanor. Michael is always a little brighter when he’s with Janet, talking, though never quite sounding right. Like he’s not truly here.

It reminds Eleanor of those elderly people she used to cold call, when their minds were clearly riddled with dementia, so afraid and confused. Desperate for any interaction. Vulnerable for a bench like her to scam.

Janet tries to help reintroduce Eleanor into the room slowly, staying by Michael, reassuring him that she isn’t a danger. She’s a friend. She wants to help. Eleanor can never step further than two metres close as he starts to violently shake and hide behind Janet, mumbling terribly about how She wants to hurt him, how She will get angry, always so angry. Eleanor has to run out and cry in front of the sunset.

Forking fork, how could she let this happen?!

*

“I solved it,” he says, not really aware of the words when they come out anymore, they’ve just become a force of habit. A tick from many centuries of boredom and isolation.

It feels good to talk properly, but making the words travel from his brain to his mouth is difficult. He’s out of practice. So long, left in the dark. He’s having to readjust to everything again. Given how old he is, time hasn’t completely rotted his brain as it would have a lesser being, he has slightly more patience needed to sustain him from losing his mind.

There’s so much he needs to get used to. Always reminding himself of the little things.

The new room is much better. It makes him feel warm but also a tiny bit sad in a way he can’t understand. He remembers the person who used to live here. He asks Janet where he is and she explains about the Door to him.

“Wow. What a great idea. Good for Glenn.” He smiles, wistful. He should thank his old colleague.

He kept up the act all this time. He helped Michael to save them. Save everyone.

“Chidi…? Jason…?”

Janet nods, rubbing his hand; “They’re at peace now. We don’t know where they go afterwards but just that it’s somewhere good.”

“Beautiful. So happy or them. Wish I got to say goodbye…” Glenn passed it on for him, he tells himself; “Am…Am I allowed to see Tahani? If she doesn’t want to. That’s fine. I understand. I was. Not good to her. Had a lot of time to think. Miss her. Wanna say sorry-.”

“I’ve already sent a message to her, she’s gonna be here as soon as she can.”

“Oh. How sweet of her. She always was a wonderful person.” He says, feeling so tired, which really shouldn’t make sense. He can’t seem to find the will to do much more than sit and talk and watch tv. Too stunted by fear and hurt to dare to leave the couch.

His eyes glance, nervously, over to the patio doors, catching a glimpse of Her watering the plants.

Janet squeezes his hand.

“Michael? Remember what we talked about? That’s not the same woman who Shawn disguised himself as. He used her face to hurt you. She won’t hurt you, I promise.”

He wants to believe Janet. But so much doesn’t make sense and that scares him almost as much as She does. Her face is the same as the angry one. But Her smell is different. Her colors don’t match the one who loved to twist him up.

“She. Not angry anymore. Used to always be angry. Or mean. Or too nice. Faking. Liked it when I cried.” He tries to explain; “She. Sad now. Looks sad, all the time. Why is She sad, Janet?”

Janet sighs, her eyes damp again; “Because…she’s lost a lot of people she loved. And because her best friend got hurt.”

“Oh, no. That’s…This is the Good Place. No one should be sad here.” He is aware enough to know that for a fact.

“It’s not always that easy, pal.”

He tries to watch Her from the inside for a little bit, seeing Her busy herself, never sitting down, not inside. She goes straight from the outside to Her bedroom, the sliding wall always closed, never enters his space. Does She try to hide the fact that She cries when She goes to sleep? Does She know his senses can perceive through those barriers? He glances down at his lap, afraid that She might spot him looking and get angry. Or worse, more sad.

Janet puts her arm around his shoulder. Her touches are always nice. Without compromise.

“Michael. Is there nothing in your memories that reminds you of her?”

He shakes his head; “S’all…blotchy and. Someone took out a piece of a puzzle. Can’t find it. Picture is there but doesn’t look right. Blank space. I…I don’t know how to…”

“It’s okay.” She whispers, “No more worrying about it today. Lemmie freshen up your antimatter.”

He thinks it’s his fault. He did something. Can’t remember. Can’t. Oh. He made Her sad, didn’t he. How? How can he fix it?

*

“From what I can work out, he tried to erase his own memory.” Janet explains as the two women and not-a-woman sit together at Eleanor’s breakfast bar for lunch.

Glenn agreed to take Michael to his office, showing him around his old collectables, see if it helps clear things up. Or, if nothing else, makes him feel better.

It’s the first time Eleanor has been able to sit in her own living space for a week.

“Is that even possible?” Tahani asks, still wearing her olive green Architect uniform, having literally come straight from the office as soon as she was allowed.

“Michael was the one who figured out memory altering. I don’t think it’s ever supposed to be self-inflicted.” Janet tells them, “I don’t know if he wanted to erase everything but, given the state of him now, I would say that when Shawn started using the Eleanor suit to torture him…he tried to erase his memory of you to stop it being effective. But he could only erase parts of you.”

“My name. My face. Kinda big important details there.” Eleanor sighs, squeezing the handle of her wine glass.

“Technically, you’re still present in his memories, he just has no connection of who you are to that image or those feelings. It’s like when you feel nostalgic over a scene in a movie but you can’t remember what the movie is called or even when you watched it, just the sensation.”

“But, surely, that means he would remember the good parts of him and Eleanor’s friendship too?” Tahani asks, her hand reaching across to hold her friend’s.

“Maybe the shirty stuff outweighs the good. We didn’t exactly…leave things on the best of terms.” She tries to tell them without getting into too much detail; “I thought we made up, apologised, after all that crab with Shawn and the Judge was over. Turns out I was making my apology to Glenn. Not Michael.”

“Oh…” Tahani tries not to break down in tears as well, no doubt going over all of her own memories of time she thought she was spending with Michael while they were here.

How can she explain it to them? What she did? What the two of them did, while Chidi’s memory was gone, justifying it as only fair? How she failed to make it clear to Michael that there wasn’t going to be anything deeper between them, unaware that the guy was already falling in love with her, and as much as she adored him back, her heart already belonged to someone else. That couldn’t change, not even for Michael. Fork. She should never have kissed him. Never have led him a dance.

Did he offer himself up because of how she had made him feel? Would he have thrown himself into the fire if she hadn’t broken his heart, stood on his feelings, crushed them beneath her heel?

She can’t afford to think like that. She can’t make out like this is a punishment for being honest, as much as she could be at the time, for wanting to be true to Chidi once he was back. Damn it. This wasn’t her torture. It was Michael’s. And he had made his choice, he made sure they would go around blissfully unaware of his suffering. Oh, to be able to take it back…

The front door opens and Glenn helps Michael in, his steps still a little uneasy.

“Thank you so much. Thanks for keeping all my paperclips shiny. And cleaning my bowling ball.”

He turns around and Tahani gets off the chair. He spots her and looks stunned, before bursting into tears, holding his hands out.

They say no words as Tahani rushes towards him and the two beanpoles embrace tightly. Eleanor feels her chest tighten with envy, wishing Michael would let her get that close. He probably would, but he’d be shaking the whole time, waiting for her to hit him. Or worse. They sob against each other as Glenn quietly leaves. Tahani is tearfully apologising for not realising the truth, for not being able to come sooner.

When they pull back, Michael strokes the peacock bowtie she’s wearing, a heartfelt smile brightening the grey off his face.

“Suits you.”

Tahani bawls a second time and they go back to hugging. Eleanor has to walk out, desperate for air.

All she had wanted, to help make this feel like Heaven, was to have her best friend back. Here he was. And she would never be anything but a nightmare in his eyes.

She enters his office, Glenn having gone out, and finds the minion plushie in the cabinet.

Did he pick this up when he saw it? Did he give it a cuddle? Did it remind him of a ghost he once called ‘friend’?

Eleanor takes a seat in Michael’s old chair. Her old chair. Both of theirs. It feels like his indent, smells like him, until she reminds herself that was all part of the Michael suit. Of Glenn. Not their Michael. His butt hasn’t marked this chair in centuries. She takes a deep breath, never having felt so alone.

She hugs the ugly yellow toddler to her chest. _We’re all that’s left now, buddy._

*

He lays on the freshly cut grass, the sky clear and blue above him. It’s such a welcome sight after being trapped in a windowless room. He thought he’d never breath fresh air or feel the sun shining on his face again.

Another body lays down beside him and he turns to see Her smiling face at his side.

“I’m glad we did this. It feels so much better.” He tells her, reaching to hold Her hand at his side.

She returns the smile; “Told you. Nothing beats the blues like a good lounge in the sun.”

He interlocks their fingers together, Her hand so little against his.

“Let’s stay out here all day. Ignore any messages through Janet. Just. Stay.”

“Breaking the rules already, I like it.” She winks at him, “Of course, buddy. Anything for you, after what you gave for us.”

She rolls over, into him, pressing herself in close. Her nose nuzzles the underside of his chin, one hand stroking over his chest, slowly journeying downwards.

He feels a lovely, warm flutter. A swell of hope. Before.

No.

Her fingers move up to tighten around his wrist. He tries to pull away. No. No, no, not this. Not again. He blinks up at Her, the sky dissolving, returning to the bare, dark ceiling that’s always been there. She sits on top of him, so much heavier than She should be, given how small She is. But She’s crushing his chest, pushing him down into the dirt.

“Down you go. See you in another ten lifetimes.” She blows him a kiss as the ground swallows him whole.

*

She watches him, sat on the sofa, staring into nothing. The TV is on, his favorite episode of the Addams Family, but he’s lost interest. His mind is elsewhere, his elbows twitching, face wincing as if being struck by the invisible man.

Is this the demon equivalent of a nightmare? Is it some sort of PTSD flashback?

She should call for Janet. Her Janet is busy talking to Gen, discussing what to do with Shawn. There are many other Janets she could try calling on but she’s never really spoken to them like her friend. It feels odd asking for their advice on a human, no demon, they don’t know all too well.

She shouldn’t need help. Michael is her best friend. Right now, with Tahani back at work and Janet elsewhere, her Earth friends all off enjoying their own afterlives…Michael is the only friend she has close to her.

And he doesn’t even know her name.

“Michael?” She dares to step closer to him, encouraged a little when he doesn’t immediately scramble away; “Michael? Can you understand me, bud?”

He continues to stare out, mouth muttering nonsense, never blinking.

Eleanor tries to reach out, wanting to touch his hair. Do something.

He flinches, sharply, away before her fingers graze him. He seems to have come back to their level of reality, his eyes on her, terrified, as if having just realised she was there. He backs further away, looking around, probably for Janet. Tahani. Even Glenn, maybe. Anyone to protect him from the evil, wicked Arizona trashbag.

She sniffs, holding back tears. He once loved this trashbag.

“I solved it.” He tells her, quivering.

He says that a lot. It’s starting to get annoying, because it doesn’t seem to mean anything, given the lack of reaction whenever Janet talks to him about it.

Eleanor takes a breath and picks up his empty bowl from where he’d had Lucky Charms earlier, only eating the marshmallow and sending the rest into Janet’s void. Classic Shellstrop move.

“I’ll wash this up, okay.” She turns and goes back to the sink.

Damn it, how long is it going to take for Michael to realise that she won’t hurt him? As long as it took to break him? How lucky that she has all the time in the Universe. It’s very unlikely she’s going to be walking through that door anytime soon. She couldn’t be less at peace if she tried. Not while Michael is hurting like he is.

She turns on the tap and begins rinsing out all the plates and cutlery, missing when her dishwasher called Chidi was here to make them all magically clean again. At least it’s a distraction.

She sniffs, dabbing her eyes with wet fingers, very counterproductive.

“I solved it.”

Eleanor jumps and turns, finding Michael standing behind her, an odd look on his face. She leans back against the sink as he stares down at her, frowning, the fear in his eyes replaced with something else. Something she hasn’t seen in so long it takes a while to place.

She takes a breath; “Dude. What’re you doing, creeping up like that, huh?”

He blinks at her, still frowning.

“I solved it.”

Oh for fork’s…

She turns off the tap before it floods the room and she turns back to him, straightening up and looking him dead in the eye.

“No. You didn’t.”

Her tone makes him flinch but he doesn’t scamper off in fright. Instead he almost looks intrigued, more surprised than scared of her temper.

“You can’t solve the trolley problem, dude! Chidi told me that, multiple times, after I explained what you said at the portal!” She explains, firmly, sick of walking on eggshells; “The whole point of the trolley problem is that it’s inevitable that someone gets hurt! If you sacrifice yourself, it still means someone is hurt, killed. And not just that, but their families, their loved ones, have to deal with that loss! Every choice leads to the same conclusion. Pain! You might have saved humanity, well done, but look what you did to yourself!” She prods him in the chest, tears leaking down her face; “Look what you did to me!”

He does, look at her. His mouth hangs open as he watches her. Eleanor sees the image of him blur as the tears refuse to stop. She covers her face with her hand and sobs freely. The last thing she should be doing right now is yelling at the trauma victim. But she can’t stop herself, nasty bench.

Michael raises his hand to touch hers, tugging it gently away, his other moving up so his thumb is wiping her cheek.

He opens his mouth and she waits for his usual, pointless mantra, the one that is a dagger in her chest every time he says it. As incorrect as it is, it’s still a reminder of the debt she can never repay, as much as she wants to. She stares up at him, feeling so small.

He blinks at her. Worried. So very Michael.

“….Always?”

Her breath stills, caught off. Her mind instantly makes the connection. The last time they spoke. Did he? Is he remembering?

Eleanor sobs again, raising her hand to hold his against her, leaning into his palm.

“Always.” Her voice breaks, watching the childlike smile appear on his face as she finally forking reaches him; “…Always, Michael.”

*

The real Eleanor will know. The real Eleanor will understand why he did this. It’s the best and fastest way to test whether she truly has come for him. He won’t get his hopes up before Shawn tricks him, hurts him, again. He needs to remind himself, as well. Never forget. Sacrifice yourself. Save five. Save a billion. Save Her. He solved it.

She will know. She will free him. She always does.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It turns out splitting a long one-shot into two large chapters kinda kills the flow so I plan to write an epilogue to finish this...Eventually.


	3. For Them

She’s nursing a glass of the fittingly named Lonely Girl Margarita mix in her hand when the knock comes at her door.

“It’s open.” Eleanor shouts back, not bothering to look or ask who it is.

Probably not the best idea. It could be any one of the four humans knocking at the Architect’s door right now. It might raise a few eyebrows if the supposed ‘Goddess’ in charge of everything here was discovered looking sad and alone after having made a quiet getaway from the party. Oh, fork it, she’ll come up with some excuse. It’s more likely to be one of her friends anyway, and they should be more than used to seeing Eleanor with a margarita in hand and cursing the world by now.

“Hey!” Michael’s voice enters along with the sharply dressed dude himself, “Everything okay? You ran off before they brought the seafood platter out. I thought it best to check you hadn’t slipped into a random sinkhole.”

It does take a lot to drive Eleanor away from her shrampies at a party but she couldn’t bear to be there another second. If all she’s there to do is get drunk and be miserable then she may as well do it in her own house without the worry of being caught by suspicious test subjects.

“Nah, I’m still on surface level. Just needed to sit this one out.” She says, turning her head and giving her best ‘yeah I’m fine even though that’s clearly bullshirt’ smile, “I was leaving things in the hands of my ‘assistant’ but now they might think you’ve bailed too.”

“Tahani’s our main hostess with all these gatherings. We’re just the admin, remember.” Michael says, walking into the living room and taking a seat on the armchair while Eleanor leaves a lot of space on the sofa, “We’re entitled to sneak off and have our mysterious private business.”

“Ah, like you during all those times we never saw you in the reboots? I always imagined you just sat in your office, trying to grow a moustache you could twirl, or summon a cat to stroke.”

“I will have you know that, behind the scenes, I was always hard at work on my next plan.” Michael deflects; “Although I did have one of those desk toys with the shiny balls, that was very fun and distracting! I once lost three whole days playing with that thing and I’m pretty sure all of you got to Mindy’s and back before I knew you were gone.”

Eleanor laughs, unable to find looking back on her time in Michael’s reboots with dark amusement, despite it being three hundred years of anxiety and humiliation. The only thing she could do was laugh because if she actually seriously considered the fact that the man sitting with her now, her most constant and closest friend, also tortured her for all that time, it might eventually melt something useful in her brain.

She feels his eyes watching her and she puts the untouched margarita on the coffee table. She can admit to herself that she’s glad that it was Michael who followed her home. It’s always Michael. Even after all that awful stuff with Glenn, the Michael suit and Bad Janet a few weeks ago, all that garbage about not being able to trust him until he was ready to decorate Mindy’s walls with his own essence. Even after all that, here he was. Always at her shoulder. Always there to pick her up and dust her off.

“So you going had nothing to do with Chidi and Simone dancing then?” He says and, instantly, she wishes the concerned demon would lay off the helicopter friending for a night.

“’Course it forking did, man.” She shakes her head, “I keep expecting to get used to seeing them together, every day. But the closer they get, the happier he seems to be with her, the more it…sticks a hot poker right between my ribs.”

“I remember that feeling. Very agonising, or going from their reactions…” He catches her exasperated look quickly; “Ah, you’re being metaphorical again.”

“Yep. Though it sure does put me in the mood to do some real life poking and twisting, I’ll tell you that.” She says. It’s not as if a demon can judge her for almost wanting to indulge in a little physical torture to let off steam.

But the only person she would feel comfortable torturing is herself. And she’s doing a good enough job of that already.

“Just say the word and I can arrange for some scorpion diapers to be sent up, next-day delivery!” Michael offers and this time, by the glint in his eye, Eleanor knows he’s joking.

“We’ll give it a few weeks, see what mood I’m in.” She winks.

And, try as she might to shield her upset with jokes, the quick high she gets from the two of them laughing quickly fades as she struggles to get the picture of Chidi looking into Simon’s eyes with so much devotion as he waltzed her around Tahani’s fifth ballroom out of her head. She wraps her arms around her middle, wanting to curl up in that spot, lacking the will to even take her shoes off, let alone get into her night clothes.

Michael must be able to read her depression, not simply from her body language, but all the other ‘layers’ and ‘energies’ he always goes on about being able to perceive around her. Are they all forming the words ‘sad, lonely dirtbag’ over her head like a neon sign? She must truly seem like a pathetic, lovesick cockroach to him.

“You’re not okay.” He says, stating the obvious. It’s the first time he says it as a fact rather than asking for her confirmation, which she usually brushes off with a lie.

She takes a sniff; “Gold star for Mikey. No. I’m really not okay. I try so hard, every day, to get through this and it keeps getting more difficult. I thought it would be smooth sailing when you guys all came back from the Bad Place, when we knew Janet was safe, but there’s always something coming up. And tonight is just stupid because the experiment is going great, we’re seeing so much growth in the humans, the only reason I’m upset is because….the man I love is falling in love with someone else! And I can’t even be mad about it because, he doesn’t remember me, so it’s not cheating! Ha…”

It’s with that ironic laugh that her eyes begin to water. It carries Michael over from his chair to cross onto her sofa, edging closer.

“Hey, hey…” He takes his handkerchief out and hands it to her to dab her eyes; “Remember what I said, okay? You’re allowed to feel whatever you want about Chidi. Be angry, be sad, be happy for him, whatever. I stand by what I said. You’re the one making the biggest sacrifice here, Eleanor. No one is going to tell you how to deal with this.”

She sniffs again and brings the red silk to her face. It matches her scarlet dress, as does his bow-tie, the two of them seeming to co-ordinate their outfits without even making the effort to pre-plan by now. The handkerchief smells of Michael, of furniture polish and whatever weird thing he uses for cologne.

With him at her side, she feels safer. He’s always had that effect, even going back to when he was only pretending to be her friend and she thought he was a genuine angel designed to take care of her and the other residents. No matter how bumbling and strange Michael seemed, Eleanor still hid behind him when a threat from the ‘Bad Place’ appeared to threaten to take her away. She always felt an intense wave of relief when Michael stuck up for her, vowed to fight to keep her. In hindsight, all those times were merely acts, the performance of a master manipulator. But given what he had done for them in all in earnest these past couple of years, maybe that protective nature of Michael’s was truer to himself than even he thought?

Whatever the case, she feels safe enough to confess her deepest fears to him now.

“What if he chooses her when he gets his memory back? What if he decides, after comparing us both side-by-side, that Simone was his true love after all?”

“You know that won’t happen, Eleanor. He chose you over Simone before…”

“That doesn’t mean it will again! I mean, eight hundred reboots and it was only in a handful of them that me and Chidi got together. Only one where I told him I loved him! I mean that’s not even like a fifth of all our time together, right? Is it? I suck at math.”

“You’re right, it’s not. But you did always find each other, every time, even if it wasn’t always romantic. And I am certain that the two of you will find each other again when this is over.” Michael says, moving his hand to touch her shoulder.

Eleanor gives a sad smile; “And, like all those other times, it might not be romantic. He might decide it’s over.” She wipes at her nose; “I just…never thought about the idea of entering the Good Place…and being alone.”

Now she does. And it’s eating her up like a parasite. All those years of convincing herself that she was okay being on her own now felt like training that she was due to fail on the upcoming exam.

She’s alone without him now and it sucks. It sucks forking balls.

Michael edges close and takes her hand in his; “You listen to me, Eleanor. Remember, at the start of all this, you told me that my new human lesson was having to watch my friend suffer and know there’s nothing I can do to fix it? Well, I still can’t fix it, and I hate this human lesson worst out of all of them. But I can do this…I can promise you that, no matter what happens, you will _never_ be alone.”

Eleanor blinks at him, seeing those bright and fun-loving eyes turn so serious as he pledges himself to her. She gives him a smile. She was wrong. She hasn’t been alone all this time since Chidi gave up his memories. Michael has been there. Her other friends too but they’ve had moments of doubt in her, working at different stations, even being separated for a month without her knowledge. Michael has always been at her side. Michael never stopped believing in her.

It was only when he had to go to the Bad Place to rescue Janet that Eleanor felt truly as though she had no one, at least until her and Tahani made something close to resembling a team. It wasn’t quite the same as her and her demon bud.

“Oh, dude.” She reaches her other hand to stroke his face; “I dunno how I’d pick myself up from any of this crab without you. I’m not sure what I did to deserve…”

“It’s not about that. It’s just what friends do. Right?” He asks, as if to check. She was the one to teach him how to put ethics into practice before he was able to turn it around and guide her in the same way, after all.

“M’right. Another gold star.” She praises and curls closer to him.

He draws her in close and holds her, letting her lean in against his shoulder. Even his hugs, while not quite as elating as Tahani’s, always had the effect of making her feel all wrapped up snug in the promise of safety, of warmth and support. It wouldn’t be the first time that she’s wondered what it would be like to fall asleep in those arms, especially on the colder nights where she struggles to rest her eyes.

Michael hums as he strokes her back and moves his chin against the top of her head.

“Humans truly are a fascinating paradox. I mean, you’re one of the strongest and bravest ones I’ve ever met…and you still get so irrationally sad over these things which you know are false.”

“Mmm. We’re kinda dumbashes that way, not too dissimilar to demons.” She quips back.

“Good point.” Michael leans back a bit to look Eleanor in the eye, his thumb stroking her chin; “I mean it though. I might not be able to make everything with Chidi perfect, like you deserve. But I can do literally anything else. I would give you anything you asked for, Eleanor, if it meant making you happy. You…have more than earned your happy ending, okay? Just. Tell me.”

He peers into her eyes and continues to gently stroke her face.

“Tell me what I can do.”

And during his speech, Eleanor’s heat has been rising a little higher with every word spoken. The close proximity, his tender touch, so little air between them.

“You can kiss me.” She whispers, looking up into his eyes.

Michael stares at her. He purses his lips and, cautiously, presses them to her forehead. The softest, most chaste kiss before he pulls back.

He swallows; “Was that right? Did I do it okay?”

Eleanor can’t tell if he’s being intentionally dense or is seriously this naive.

“Close. Try here.” She points to her lips; “I promise it won’t be gross.”

Michael takes a breath, looking rather put on the spot.

“I...I dunno about that, Eleanor.” He looks away and pulls his hand back, suddenly unsure and shy.

“Yeah, you do, bud. I saw how you were looking at me tonight, ever since I walked out in this dress. Brings back memories, doesn’t it?”

Michael lets out an awkward laugh; “I suppose. I’m not sure how you remember it. You didn’t even remember it was me there or that I'd saved you.” He winces slightly, as it wasn’t a completely pleasant memory; “You didn’t even know my name.”

“Sexy Bartender Guy. Wasn’t that good enough?” She teases, reaching for his hand; “I can remember the way you looked at me that night.”

“I was just...so happy to see you. To speak to you again. The closest I could be to you, for a whole year, had been reading a roll of ticker tape.” He explains, still avoiding her eyes; “...I missed you.”

“Oh…” Something suddenly clicks in her brain.

Michael frowns at her; “What?”

Eleanor’s face starts to light up as she sidles even closer, pressing her leg against his. She looks up at his face with newfound joy in her eyes, as if she’s discovered a long-lost treasure, or a new season of the Real Housewives.

“You get it, don’t you? What I’m going through, with Chidi? You know what it’s like?” She almost laughs out of pure elation; “I never thought of it like that before! Damn it, Michael. I thought you couldn’t relate to any of our human shirt but…well, this isn’t really a human thing is it, someone you care about having their mind reset and losing all memory of you but still going on with their lives? That sorta stuff doesn’t happen on Earth.”

“No, not really, I suppose.” Michael muses, “Unless there’s a freak accident with a railroad spike through the head, or on every soap opera ever.”

Often times she feels as though her afterlife is a cheesy soap opera. They definitely met their amnesia quota. They just needed more evil twins and a bunch more adultery.

“But you know. You know how I feel. You…missed me, even though I couldn’t miss you back.” She sighs, heavily and reaches to touch his face again; “God, Michael…How did you do it?”

His face creases as he seems to think of an answer. For the briefest of seconds, Eleanor catches a glimpse of all of those billions of years he’s been around between the lines framing his eyes.

“I just kept going. Kept focusing on saving you all. Doing what I could to help. And hoping that, one day, when you guys remembered…you’d still like me. And even if you didn’t, if all the memories of the lies and the torture was too much and you hated me…It would still be worth it, if I made sure you were safe.”

The same deal as her. Even if Chidi gets his memory back and chooses Simone over her, everything will still be worth it if it means humanity is safe…and the man she loves is happy, despite it not being with her. It’s harsh. It’s cruel. But it’s the deal.

And Michael gets it. Michael has been there and come through the other side.

“You should’ve kissed me that night. I was a free agent, buddy.” She tells him, “That would’ve been your perfect chance. You might have still got the girl in the end.”

“You were drunk. I made sure you got home safe. It wouldn’t have been right.” He tells her.

“I’m not drunk now. Haven’t touched a drop.” She nods to her full glass on the table. Eleanor takes his hands again and places them on either side of her hips while she moves hers around his neck; “Kiss me, Michael. You’ve earned it.”

“That’s not how it wor-.”

She silences him by putting her hand to the back of his head and pushing him forward until his lips meet hers. His fingers tighten around her hips as she massages her tongue against his, fingers stretching through the shorter white hairs at the top of his neck.

He moans, moving one hand up to her shoulder as he tries to move back. He takes a few breaths as if she had just plunged his head into a bucket of ice.

“Eleanor…Is this right?” He’s asking her, as he always has.

A demon who doesn’t always understand right from wrong, seeking help from the most problematic human he knows. Because she’s the closest to being on his level of not having a single forking clue.

She frowns at him this time; “You tell me, Michael. Is it right for the man who told me he loves me to get to spend a year with another woman without the guilt of knowing he’s technically cheating on me? Is it right that I have to watch them be together while I’m left to deal with trying to save the world? Is it right that I’m the one who has to go to sleep, cold and alone, every night, and not be touched or held or kissed-?!”

Michael is the one to silence her with his lips this time, clutching her close, hands on her forearms, tugging her onto his lap until Eleanor willingly wraps her legs around his waist. He’s clumsy at first, teeth hitting awkwardly against her lips until she undoes his bow-tie, hushing him to loosen up, take it slow, easy does it. The tears that had started to fall during her speech evaporate as their bodies press close together.

No. No, it’s not right. And neither is this. But to Here with it.

She’s no longer cold, Eleanor thinks with a silly grin as she lets Michael’s lips explore her neck. No longer alone. No. Yes. Oh, fork yes!

*

Her neck felt so tender, so smooth, the smallest primal thrill rushing through him as he sucked and nibbled at Her skin. He could feel the vibrations of every single artery only a few inches away from his teeth. He’d torn bites out of humans before. Too gooey for his liking. He preferred beef, personally. He felt no hunger to tear into Her. It was thought of Her trusting him to be so close, to let Herself be vulnerable, in the arms of a monster, that made him buzz.

His hand had moved to feel down Her dress, helping to undo Her zip. What colour was it? What color was Her hair? It’s all gone, along with the sound of Her voice whispering his name.

All gone.

Michael moves a finger in the air. He should remember Her face. He’d traced it while She slept so many times. Sometimes She woke up, smiling as his digit tickled Her nose. How can a smile exist without a mouth?

He idly plucks a G chord with the finger of his other hand.

“Working on anything there?”

He flinches, only slightly, unable to help it, his hands clutching his guitar close. He can see Her glow in the corner of his eye as She sits down beside him. Never closer than six feet.

She won’t hurt, not this one. He tries to remind himself of Janet’s constant assurance.

“Just testing. Should really get new strings. Don’t think Glenn’s changed them.” He tells Her, eyes down on the varnished wood. At least his old colleague kept it clean.

“I was starting to think the guitar thing was his own hobby.” She comments, sliding a cup of coffee towards him on the table in front of them while She sits back with Her own, tucking Her legs beneath Her.

“Probably found it in my stuff. Took it up to help play the role. Might have liked it. Said he. Learned to like a lot of my things.”

And friends.

He was grateful that Glenn kept watch over them on his behalf. He can’t help but wonder, dreadfully, did they prefer being friends with Glenn over him? He should be glad that Chidi and Jason got to pass on without ever knowing the truth. But it still makes him sad. Tahani had cried in his arms for hours and it was horrible. But now she sent him messages every day through Janet, posted blueprints of new neighborhoods she was working on as well as asking for his input. Even though she was far away most of the time now, he feels like they have more in common and a stronger bond than they did before, during all the running and trying to save all souls.

And then there was Janet. Janet who, might not be as open with her feelings as his favorite honorary British princess was, he could read in her eyes how sorry she was for not seeing the truth. She was always there, with a simple call of her name, or sometimes less than that, to support him. To help try to unclog the big blockage of gunk that was now his mind.

There was someone else too. This human who is letting him crash at Her house. Chidi’s old house. Chidi’s soul mate. A Sad human with Her Angry Face but not the same person. Not She that hurt him for all that time. Janet said She won’t ever be coming back. Michael knows She always does.

“You already sound better than he ever did.” She compliments. She always says nice things now. Always soft, not hard. Always patient, never cruel.

Michael’s lips twitch. Smiling is difficult on a lot of days. Easier on others, with others.

“Thank you for the coffee. And. Letting me stay.” He says, wanting Her to know, “I could go back to my office, if you want. Glenn left it. Built himself his own place. Terrible wall placement but.”

“Dude, I hate the thought of you just sat at that desk on your own with just that chair, comfy as it is,” She tells him, and he suddenly remembers someone sat in it and daring him to spin them as fast as physically possible. Then vomit, a lot of vomit. “I’d much rather have you here…if you want to be here, that is.”

“Mmmm.” He nods, shyly, “Like it here. Remember. Chidi. Lessons. People Good. First A plus. Impressive, huh?”

“Very.” She says, Her glow trembling, shifting to a dark blue. Oh no. Is he making Her sad again? Sadder?

He straightens up, hugging his guitar close; “I can make something for you! If you want. To say thank you? I’m good at making stuff. Made this house, the original one, Glenn just built off design and took away scary clowns. Did Chidi tell you?”

She sniffs, the blue getting dimmer, almost black; “He did…And you don’t need to make me anything, Michael. You’re…family. Okay, bud?”

Family? Is that because Chidi was like a…well, not really a son, as he taught Michael more than the other way around…and it doesn’t feel right saying brother. Most of the time they didn’t get on, bickering over ethical differences or Michael playing some prank on him, but it was all with a hidden layer of appreciation. Of respect.

He never got a chance to say it to the professor out loud. Oh.

“Michael.” She pulls his attention back with his name, before he loses himself in regret; “Do you remember why you…Why you were in the Bad Place? Why you went there?”

He nods his head, vigorously; “For them. For everyone. Had to save everyone. For…” his brain short-circuits again.

“Right. And I’m human, yeah? So, I’m included in that list of people you sacrificed your freedom for.” She explains to him; “I’m the one who’s in debt to you. That means you can stay here as long as you want. It’s seriously the least I can do.”

That’s very good of Her. He still feels an urge, a pull, to please Her. Not just because She reminds him of the Angry One who he had to keep happy so She would stop lashing him with a riding crop.

Her smell, Her colors, remind him of a sweet dream he had, maybe. Long ago.

“If I knew more about you, maybe…If I knew what you liked. Oh!” He jumps up and puts down his guitar; “That’s it! I’ll read your file! I can study it, real quick, learn everything about you! Janet.”

His friend appears at his side; “Everything okay?” She asks, more concerned than her usual chirpy greeting.

“Yes! Yes, all good, I just need the file for…uhm…” He cringes, waving his hand in the air as if to summon the words his memory fails him with. He turns to his exasperated human host on the sofa; “Forgive me, please, I know you told me before, but slipped away…Your name?”

She rubs at Her forehead; “Eleanor Shellstrop.” She sounds so tired. It must be all the crying she does stopping Her from getting a good night’s sleep. Maybe he could help Her with that somehow?

*

At least he was talking to her now, rather than repeating the same phrases over and over. It was nothing like the chats they used to have, the free and easy conversations, the two of them sat at her patio table with a beer in hand or having a coffee in the town square or just perched on his office desk. Anywhere, any time. Talking with Michael had once been the most simple and natural thing in the world.

Now, just having Michael be able to give her eye contact for more than a second, is a rarity. He’s fine having her be in the same room as him but if she edges any closer than two metres, he tenses up and shakes like he’s waiting for her to go to town on him with a baseball bat. And then there will be random bursts of Michael-ness where he’s all bounce and ideas tumbling out of his mouth, like he’s the excited, inspired Architect once again. So eager to please. So forking oblivious.

If there’s a touch, the ball has to be in his court. He might reach to brush his fingers against her face when she cries or squeeze her shoulder. It’s nice. It makes her long for a hug. But whenever she tries, he scurries back into the corner and they’re back to square one.

She hoped that him reading her file might help jog his memory. Janet said that it was all about connecting the jumbled dots in his head. Whenever she tried showing Michael photos of the six of them as a group, his face would light up with pure joy, but he’d look at the images of Eleanor as if she had been photoshopped into them. That’s basically what it’s like in his head right now, Janet had explained.

He kept saying that he wanted to do something for her. Not because he remembered her, just because he’s Michael. That’s what Michael does.

_Tell me what I can do. Tell me._

That’s how this whole mess had started. Michael being so eager to make her happy. Eleanor being so self-centred to happily take advantage.

She spends the day wandering around a replica of one of her old haunts in Phoenix with a couple of her old friends. It’s not quite the same bond as with her soul squad but she’s just grateful to have fellow humans to hang out with, to talk shirt about clothes and dead celebrities who are going through trials. She tries to talk to them about her problems with Michael but attempting to discuss her struggle with reconnecting to the ancient demon who let himself be tortured to save them all blows their minds to the point neither can form a coherent sentence. The best she gets is a ‘damn, gurl!’ and an awkward embrace.

It’s strange. It’s as if all that time spent befriending a demon and a Janet, experiencing three hundred afterlives, running through different dimensions, pretending to be the guardian angel of her own neighborhood, turned her into something more than human herself. She’s been around for so long now. She doesn’t relate to the people she knew on Earth like she once did.

But then, in fairness, she never had any real connections on Earth. Her first real friends had all been made after she died.

She grabs some frozen yoghurt for both her and Michael on the way home, taking the long road back across the fields rather than going through the green door. Is she dragging her feet? Maybe. She feels guilty for almost not wanting to go back. To not have the depressing weight of her best friend not remembering her constantly crushing her soul.

A day of fresh air and freedom did not prepare her for the surprise waiting for her when she walks through her front door.

“Eleanor? Hi.”

It almost feels too natural to surprise her. All the years they had spent living together in this house, how many days she had come home to his warm greetings. It had been a few decades now since he’d left but that still felt like a few minutes compared to all their time together before.

“Chidi…?”

She puts the frozen yogurt to one side before she drops that like her glass of wine before. She cautiously steps closer, her eyes scanning her once and forever soul mate.

“Oh God. Chidi, is it really…” She stops a couple of feet before him.

He smiles at her, eyes twinkling behind those glasses.

“I’m Chidi Anagonye. And you are my soul mate.” He tells her, his hands cupped before his chest.

Eleanor’s heart nearly leaps up her throat.

“Oh my forking god!” She rushes forward and throws her arms around his neck, hands clutching at the fabric of his sweater vest; “I can’t believe you’re here. How is it…? Oh, I didn’t even give a crab how you did it, but…I’ve needed you so much!”

She pulls back from the hug to smooth her hands over his face, kissing his lips like a thirsty bench, pulling him close, trying to hold back tears of overwhelming bliss.

“Just wait till I tell you what happened after you…” Eleanor pauses, studying his face, how his happy little expression hasn’t changed since she walked through the door; “…Chidi? You with me, babe?”

“Eleanor, hi. I’m Chidi Anagonye. And you are my soul mate.” He tells her again. The exact same tone.

His hands haven’t moved to touch her. Has he even blinked?

Oh, whatever, maybe this was what came from achieving enlightenment or whatever. Eleanor tries to push all her worries and niggling doubts aside to keep embracing him.

“Yeah…I remember, dude! I’m not gonna be forgetting that in the next thousand Bearimys, at least not as long as that calendar holds up.” She grins and kisses his cheek, his lips, his nose again. “Oh. So good to have the real thing…”

Chidi remains rather still. There are no kisses back to her.

Eleanor frowns at him, her hands on his shoulders; “What’s wrong?”

He blinks, but very slowly.

“Eleanor, hi. I’m Chidi Anagonye. And you…”

She lets go, throwing herself back, away from him a little as he repeats that single line. The line from when they had first met, from when he had first entered ‘her’ new house in the afterlife. The same excited, nervous but besotted look in his eyes. The same sweet smile. All resurrected, playing on repeat.

Like one of those old timey robots they had to put the coin in the work, the same task over and over without questioning orders or morality.

In other words…not Chidi.

“What the fork?!” Eleanor swears, feeling a little queasy.

A knock on the wall nearby startles her as Michael enters from the back door. He has a proud smile on his face, that spring in his step as he walks in, clasping his hands together as he moves closer to them. Almost recreating the three of them together in the moment he introduced Chidi to her that first time, as well as all the others.

He looks almost like his old self again. His old, old, not reformed self.

“What d’you think? Do you like him?” Michael grins, hovering beside the fake Chidi; “It’s the first time I’ve ever created a human outside of simulations! You wouldn’t believe how hard I had to work to get that hairline right.”

“You made…this?” Eleanor asks, quietly.

“Yes. It’s a present. For you.” Michael confirms, one hand dusting at something off Chidi’s right sleeve without bringing a reaction from his creation; “I know I haven’t quite got the voice right, he’s still on a demo mode. But you’ve felt him, right, he’s got that juice to be all warm and you can take him to bed with you if you want. I wouldn’t recommend testing the penis out just yet, it needs a bit of tweaking-.”

“Get rid of it.”

Michael looks at her, the light in his face quickly fading again when he sees how she has to turn away. She just. Can’t look at him. It. Not Chidi. Not her Chidi.

“But. Your file said that your favorite thing was…”

“I SAID GET RID OF IT!” She screams, facing the other wall, “GET IT OUT! GET IT OUT OF MY HOUSE!”

She puts a hand to her eyes, teeth clenched as she tries to control her temper. Forking shirt. If she turns around, if she takes another look at it, she might be stupid enough, desperate enough, to accept the ‘gift’. To believe in the lie for the sake of having something close to resembling someone she loves and who loves her back.

She doesn’t turn until she hears Michael snap his fingers. Eleanor takes a deep breath. When she looks back, the demon is standing on his own. The Chidi-o-tron an awful glitch, quickly patched up and deleted. It had barely existed for two minutes and had been one of the most awful experiences of Eleanor’s existence.

“I’m. I’m sorry.” The former Architect looks sheepish again; “Was it the smile? Was he not anxious enough? What about if I put his head on a copy of Tahani’s body?”

Eleanor holds herself back from putting her fingers around his neck and throttling him.

“Michael. Have you gone completely insane?!”

He blinks; “Well. Yeah. I thought that was pretty obvious.”

He’s so deadpan and self-aware that, for a split second, Eleanor wonders if this whole thing has been just yet another deception. Another play designed to torment her, like the good old days. She doesn’t allow herself to believe that. But still.

“How could you do that to me, man?” She asks, looking him in the eye.

“I just wanted to help.” He responds, quieter now, “W-wanted to make you not sad anymore.”

“Why? Why do I matter to you? You don’t even know who I am!”

“Sure, I do! Uhm…Elisha, right?”

“YOU JUST SPENT THE WHOLE DAY READING MY FORKING FILE AND YOU STILL DON’T’ KNOW MY NAME?!” She picks the folder up and tosses it at him. The thin sheets of paper flap at Michael’s chest, fluttering harmlessly after barely hitting him, but he recoils as if she threw a fireball at him.

The tall demon hunches over, almost looking as though he’s shrinking in front of her.

“…J-just wanted to make you happy.” He looks down at the floor.

“Did you really think that would make me happy?! To believe that the love of my life had come back into existence only for it to be a forking robot?!” If anyone dares correct her on that terminology, then she will rip them in half. She’s had forking enough; “It’s bad enough that all my closest human friends are gone and now the only one I have left is a shell of the demon I used to know, who’s so forked in the head that his dopey doppelganger made a better Michael than you do!”

She advances a step and is ready to give him a shove, just a light one, before he looks up, eyes wide and brimming with fear.

“Oh. Oh no. She’s angry. Made Her angry.” He mutters, his body starting to shake, hands moving up in a defence pose.

“Yes! You pissed me off!” Doesn’t she have a right to that? Wasn’t he the one who told her that she was entitled to be angry? “That’s the closest to a Michael thing you’ve done since you came back, forking torturing me!”

Her voice breaks on the second to last word as she sees Michael’s lip wobble dangerously. Somehow she managed to herd him up against the wall which he’s now cowering against like a dog being berated by his master, waiting for a beating.

“No. No, no, no…I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” He puts his hands together, back hunched forward, begging; “Please don’t be angry, please, can’t take anymore, I can’t…”

Eleanor stops herself. She steps back, seeing what she’s doing, who is really the torturer and torture victim in this scene. Oh, shirt.

“Michael, just stop.” She tries to sound calmer now.

She took it too far. She overreacted, didn’t handle it as well as she could have. She never meant to…

The demon looks up, that spark of a new idea in his eyes again; “I’ll make it better. You see? I’ll make it go away. Make it all go away.”

“You already made it…No. Wait.” Eleanor sees it. His thumb and index finger in the air; “What are you gonna do?”

He smiles. The saddest smile she’s ever seen.

“I’m gonna make it go away.” Michael tells her.

Oh fork!

“No, stop!” She panics, her heart racing, reaching up; “Put your hand down!”

“G-goodbye…Elizabeth.”

“MICHAEL, NO!”

He snaps his fingers. The room flashes white.

Eleanor cringes, waiting for…nothing, she supposes, just for everything to disappear. Everything to stop being important. All her memories and experiences to reset to zero once again.

But they don’t. Do they? How would she know?

She blinks and stares. Everything feels the same, she can remember getting the frozen yogurt and seeing the scary fake Chidi and yelling at Michael…

Wait.

“Michael?”

He’s no longer in front of her. Or anywhere. Eleanor starts searching from room to room, peeking around to the kitchen, then the porch, to her bedroom, every nook and cranny. No sign. Nothing. Her breathing quickens as she turns and opens her front door, looking out onto the pathway, not seeing any sign of another being in radius, until a couple from another house nearby walk towards the nearby lake.

She goes back inside. Back into her empty house.

“Michael?” Eleanor calls again, glancing around, every passing second he doesn’t appear feeling like a drop of ice water on her neck; “Michael?”

Silence.

She cries out, terrified; “MICHAEL!”

More silence.

Awful thoughts and images begin to swarm in her head for where he might have disappeared to. What if he sent himself back to the Bad Place? What if they can’t find him again? She will have sent him there. She scared him away. She became the very thing that had been his waking nightmare for centuries.

Or what if he erased himself from existence? A different, less peaceful version of the Final Door.

“Janet!” She calls out.

“Eleanor?” Her all-knowing friend asks after a ‘bing’, appearing beside her; “What’s wrong?”

She turns to her, frantic, “Michael’s gone! I-I shouted at him, I didn’t mean to, but I couldn’t help it and he snapped his fingers…H-he said he was gonna make it ‘go away’, Janet, I think he’s done something, we have to find him!”

Janet moves forward and places her hands-on Eleanor’s arms. An affectionate, calming gesture that would have been too complicated for the celestial mainframe to be capable of many years ago.

“Calm down. It’s okay.” Janet tells her, firm but kind; “Michael’s fine, Eleanor, don’t worry.”

“What? How do you know that already?” She asks. Her friend might know literally everything but it’s been proven that certain things slip by her. Like the fact that the Architect hanging out with them for all this time wasn’t their real friend.

“Because he hasn’t left the room. He’s sat over there in the corner, next to the cheese plant.”

Eleanor frowns. She’s sure that she looked everywhere. Michael is hardly an easy man…or being, whatever, to lose sight of. She turns to look at the cheese plant, or as she called it the plant plant because where the fork was there cheese on it? It sits on its own against the wall. No sign of a demon beside it.

“…I can’t see him.” She tells Janet.

“He’s slipped into another level of reality, outside of human perception. Think of it like hiding behind a curtain.” Her friend tries to explain.

“So…he’s invisible?”

“Not quite like you think, but close enough.”

Eleanor edges carefully over to the cheese plant and kneels beside it. She’s not quite sure where she’s supposed to be looking.

“Careful. Your feet are going through him.” Janet warns.

“Fork.” Eleanor shuffles back and gets on her knees, “Michael? Janet, can he hear me? What’s he doing?”

She hates this. Hates it.

“He’s just sat there. He can hear you.” Janet says, woefully.

Eleanor takes a breath, her lungs weighed down with the regret of how she’s treated him. And not just in regards to yelling at him just now. She pictures him in front of her, sat like how he was when they found him in his cell, all long knees curled in, face against the wall, forgotten in a tiny pocket in the deepest, darkest corner of the cosmos. Lost.

Another crack runs through her heart as she struggles to be the strong one. For both of them. If she could swap places with him, hide away in the darkness so he gets to live, free and happy, in light, she would make that switch with a snap of her own fingers.

*

He should have his hoodie. He used to wear his grey hoodie when he wanted to hide away. When he wanted to wallow in his misery.

There was no hoodie in his cell. That’s what this is meant to be.

He can’t take himself back there. It didn’t seem fair, after Janet had come all the way to get him out. He’d already tried suggesting making his own house. She wanted him to stay. It was the only thing She had wanted from him, so far. Therefore, he stays. But that doesn’t mean She has to put up with him, or even know he’s there. The benefit of humans having limited perceptions. He never wanted to do anything like this before, not since the last ‘reboot’.

Because he _wanted_ humans to see him. He never wanted to hide away, even when he was most ashamed of what he was.

The farthest he got was hiding away in his office when he went too far. When Chidi told him to get the fork out because he wouldn’t deal with Michael’s bullshirt in his class anymore. He had been too petty and insecure to apologise so he’d retreated to his demon cave, waiting for Chidi to come to him and be the bigger person to make things up between them.

Except. That wasn’t what happened.

He clutches at his head, remembering a shade of yellow entering his office without even knocking, barging in as if She owned the place. As if she owned him. He remembers a stern voice putting him in his place and telling him to grow the fork up. He remembers being lead out of the cave by the hand rather than being dragged kicking and screaming. Who came for him? Who wanted him back?

“Michael? Buddy?”

She…El-something? Damn it, what is _wrong_ with him? Why is that so hard to remember?

She’s kneeling close to him, Her eyes looking more towards the plant than him. Maybe She’s talking to the plant? Is the plant also called Michael?

“I’m sorry I yelled. I’m sorry I scared you.” She says and he frowns. She doesn’t usually apologise so quickly…

Oh.

He glances up, over Her shoulder, to Janet. Janet who can see him, who is watching him. Michael remembers. This isn’t the same Her. Not the angry one. She got angry but that doesn’t make Her the same. It doesn’t mean She will try to hurt…he hopes.

“Listen. If you need some time to yourself, in your own little Michael void there, that’s cool. I wouldn’t wanna be around me too after that.” She explains, “Your present, the Chidi robot, it just…freaked me out a little, okay? I get what you were going for, really, and I appreciate the gesture. Hell, I know there’s a part of me that’s gonna seriously regret not taking him for a spin once you sorted out that penis glitch. But…believe it or not, Chidi is not the one I need back in my life right now who can make me happy.”

Michael scratches at his shin. Who, then? Tahani was the other favorite name mentioned in the file but she’s busy. The next was Stone Cold Steve Austin, maybe…?

Janet clears her throat, getting his attention. She then jabs a finger in his direction.

…Him? She wants him?

“You just come back onto our little plane of reality when you’re ready, okay?” She tells him, “I’ll be here when you do, no matter how long you need me to wait.” She sighs and reaches Her hand out on the floor, unknowingly brushing Her fingers close to his shoe; “I’m right here.”

His forearm tingles with a lovely, warm sensation. And he thinks of his hoodie again. Strange.

He stays in his corner for the rest of the evening. She continues to talk to him, every now and then, as if leaving a voicemail in the ether. Letting him know there’s a tub of frozen yogurt in the kitchen for him, his favorite topping; Perfect Exterior Aesthetic Design. When she sits down to watch tv, She leaves the remote beside Her on the couch, letting him know he’s free to change it if he wants. She’s always asking Janet if he’s okay. Or perhaps, more accurate, if he’s still there.

He can see the way Her hands wring together, how She tenses, Her color trembling terribly. Is She really so frightened at the thought of him going?

It isn’t until night-time when he finally gets up. His host wishes him goodnight after she’s bathed and dressed, saying how she hopes to see him in the morning, literally. He stands up and watches Her lay down and curl beneath the top layer of Her blankets.

Why didn’t She close Her shutter?

He could watch the TV on this plane, he supposes. It wouldn’t affect Her side of things. Everything looks the same to him, here, only slightly more distorted. Fuzzy. He decides to go eat the frozen yogurt she bought him earlier. That one he does need to dip between the two planes so that he can eat it. If She were to glance over, She might be freaked out to find a tub of froyo floating in mid-air, slowly being devoured.

It tastes good. Satisfying. She knew his favorite topping? Does She know he’s just a big nerdy Architect, when all is said and done?

There’s a whimper that pulls his attention back to Her. She’s crying in Her sleep again. Oh, if only his present hadn’t freaked Her out so much. She would have Her giant Chidi doll to hold Her close and keep Her warm. Missed opportunity. It’s not fair that She should sleep alone. Not right.

He crosses the room, up the steps and tugs another layer of the duvet over Her shoulder.

Her hand swiftly moves up over the exact same spot his hand is, going straight through it.

“Michael?” she whispers; “…Michael, are you there?”

There’s no real point responding verbally when Her human ears can’t hear him. Well, he could try to get his voice to pierce the veil, just as he’s doing to move the duvet. He doesn’t. He pats it down on her and goes to move away. She won’t like him being this close, watching Her sleep. Creepy, much?

“I miss you.”

He stills beside Her bed.

“It’s gotta be weird for you, right? Staying with this strange, hot human who you don’t remember?” She asks and yes, yes it is very confusing and scary; “I thought not having Chidi remember me would be the hardest thing to go through but I was wrong. This is way worse. Because you were the only one who understood…The only one who…You were always the closest thing I had to family, Michael. Now I have no one. I dunno how to get through this. Fork…”

She’s still crying. Should he get some tissues? That might look funny if he moves one near Her, like a tiny ghost. He puts his hand on Her head instead.

“I’m sorry. You won’t remember what I’m apologising for but, just do me this and listen, please.” She keeps talking; “I already said this to Glenn when I thought he was you but…There’s more to it now. I used you, Michael. Not to hurt you, not because I didn’t care…Because I hated myself for everything bad I felt about Chidi for choosing to forget me…and I took it out on you. Because you were there. Because I knew you felt…” She sniffs and wipes Her hand; “I knew that you loved me. And I used that to fill a hole Chidi left. I even tried to fill it again when he went through the door…Poor Glenn. That was how I found out the truth. You’re only safe now because I’m such a lonely, horny, selfish bench.”

That’s not true. He might not know this girl, this sweet and sad human, but he knows She is more than what She is saying about Herself. He can see it all around Her, inside of Her, a galaxy of love.

“You broke your promise.”

Michael moves his hand back a bit. What did he do wrong now?

She rubs at Her nose; “You promised me I would never be alone. Now they’re all gone, Michael…Jason, Tahani, Chidi…Even you can’t be on the same level of reality with me. It’s not your fault. Just me being such a dirtbag. I drove you all away, the people I love more than anything. No matter what, I should’ve known, shouldn’t have let you make that promise. At the end of the day, I’m always alone.”

Something visceral stirs inside Michael at Her words. Chidi left…Her? How could he? Of course, Michael understood the purpose of the door and why it was necessary but. Damn it. Look at Her.

She’s so little. So Sad. But good. He read Her file, he knows how far She had to claw Her way up from the very bottom. She’s incredible. She saved the world. Her and Chidi found each other, again and again, in Neighbourhood 12358W. His neighbourhood. Why didn’t…? Nothing made a lick of sense. Chidi was his friend, one of the humans who he had chosen to betray everything he knew to save, one of the humans who saved him. He didn’t know this small human at all aside from living in Her house for a short while and brief flickers of long-lost nostalgia.

And yet, the idea of Chidi choosing to leave Her alone in the Universe, made him want to jab the pesky little nerd’s face full of needles! What a dingus!

He doesn’t remember Her. But he knows She deserves better than this.

Michael looks at Her again to see that She’s fallen asleep, that same defeated expression still on Her face. He can’t sleep. But he lays down on the bed, beside Her, his hand on Her arm. He doesn’t remember making any such promise. But he will keep it. No matter what.

*

She still hopes that Michael decides to make himself visible again soon. Until then though, maybe having a ghost roomie wasn’t all that bad.

Eleanor had woken up to the smell of pancakes travelling all the way from the kitchen on the other side of her house. She’d leaned up and sat, rubbing her eyes after an oddly peaceful night all things considered. The kitchen was empty but there was definitely food on the go. Batter mix forming on a sizzling pan.

“Michael?” She’d quickly gone over, wondering who else it could be. Janet wouldn’t need to cook and she usually waits for Eleanor to ask for her breakfast; “Are you…?”

The pan hovered into the air and flipped one of the pancakes in the air and perfectly onto its other side. Eleanor stepped back to avoid the splatter but it was a sight to behold. A few moments later, a plate of them drizzled with syrup, butter and blueberries, topped off with a Twinkie – Arizona special recipe – was being presented in mid air in front of her.

For the first time in weeks, Eleanor manages a smile.

“Wow…Thanks, Casper.” She grins and takes the breakfast, never passing up a good meal; “…I’m supposed to be taking care of you, remember?”

And a right shirt job she’s been doing of that.

Maybe that was were they differed. Michael always needed…to be needed. He always liked taking care of people, making them happy. Even if he barely knew them. She remembers feeling his presence close to her last night. Had he stayed with her until the morning? Was that why she had slept so well?

_Don’t take advantage of him again. He’s not your toy._

No. She won’t make that mistake again. But it’s something more than just walking on eggshells around Michael, trying to force him to remember, waiting for something to snap.

“Hey, guess what.” She speaks to the air later, no longer caring if her eyes aren’t looking in the right spot. “I asked Janet for some new strings for your guitar.”

She picks up her napkin and forms it into a mouth in her hand.

“’Why thank you, Eleanor, that is so thoughtful of you. You are truly the reigning ethics Queen!’.” She mimics his voice, if he’s not going to use it.

The napkin is snatched out of her hand. It’s folded into a crown and placed on her head.

She laughs again, imagining Michael laughing too. Maybe they’re both insane. A crazy dead girl and her crazy ghost bud. The perfect pair in Heaven together.

It’s later, when Michael’s guitar is hovering in the armchair, being restrung and retuned by his invisible hands, Eleanor finds herself on the floor with a box full of papers that Glenn dropped off the day before. She figured Michael might want to familiarise himself with those song lyrics of his again.

She opens the box and the first thing she sees is an envelope with her name on.

“You wrote me a letter?” She says, taking it into her hands. Or is it from Glenn? No, he’d already talked things out with her. She didn’t think she could ever be cool around him after what he did for so long, but she didn’t hold it against him.

It’s then that Michael’s voice returns, if not his body.

“A letter?”

She looks up and over at the armchair, at the animate guitar probably being held on his lap.

“I don’t remember writing a letter.” He plucks at an E chord.

Eleanor sighs; “You must have erased that too, I guess. What’s worse is that Pre-Snap Michael also forgot that I don’t speak demon jargon!” She shows him the paper with all the symbols and squiggles and cat emojis.

“Oh. My bad.”

“It’s not your fault, it’s…Never mind. Janet,” She looks to the not-robot when she appears; “D’you mind translating this letter Michael wrote for me?”

“Sure thing.” Janet nods, smiling over at Michael. Eleanor envies her advanced, superior sight.

Janet stays, taking a seat on the sofa.

Eleanor watches as the incomprehensible language morphs into English, moving around from a block paragraph to what appears more like a very long poem. She frowns and begins to read aloud, slowly;  
  


_“Hi Eleanor,  
If you’re reading this then I must be far away,  
And you’ve raided my things,  
Not cool,  
But please hear what I’ve got to say.”  
  
_

“Wait!” Michael pauses her. He mumbles the words she just said over again, and Eleanor starts to see the translucent image of a hand move across the instrument, his fingers strumming a beat; “Oh…Keep it going, keep reading!”

Eleanor looks to Janet with confusion and then back at the sheet, straightening up. _  
  
“I never wanted you to know that I’ve gone,  
To let you believe we were always together,  
And you’d never hear this song.  
But I know you,  
I’ve known you all along.  
And there’s nothing in this crazy world,  
To stop you proving me wrong…”  
  
_As Michael’s fingers settle into a tune, Eleanor finds her reading working along with it, her voice lifting unexpectedly until she realises that it really is more than just a poem.

“You wrote me a song?” She stares at him.

“Really? Huh. I thought Purple Train was my only original piece!” He grins, his face slowly coming back into view, keeping the rhythm going; “C’mon, let’s continue, I wanna hear the rest. Please.”

Eleanor bites her lip and stands up, fingers gripping the paper. If this is what it takes to bring him back. _  
  
“I’m trapped in the Bad Place,  
And I may have lost my mind.  
But it’s worth it to save you,  
The girl who made a demon kind.  
  
I miss you like crazy,  
But I know that you’ll save me.  
  
Please. Please, save me.”_

 _  
_ She’s not quite sure if this is how Michael envisioned the lyrics to be sung but she tries her best, imagining him rushing these out in his final moments before leaving to keep up his end of the bargain with Shawn. When she glances at her current Michael, now almost solid in the chair, the sparkle in his eyes is from discovering a new song. His song. There’s no pain, no connection, no melancholy from the words being spoken.

They’re not for him anyway.

_“Hi Eleanor,  
Will you help this dumb ol’ fire-squid one last time?  
Just give me time.  
And know that I will never regret,  
All we had that I might forget._

_It was never to punish you, never to make you cry,  
My choice was clear from the start,  
All it needed was a lie.  
Just pretend that it was me,  
The smile, the hair, the bow-tie.  
Keep those memories queued for when I return,  
And we’ll binge them, side by side._

_I’m trapped in the Bad Place,  
And I may have lost my mind…”_

As she repeats the chorus, she feels Janet’s fingers intertwine with the ones on her lap, the not-a-girl shuffling close to her on the sofa. Eleanor gives her a shaky smile, blinking at her through the tears forming in her eyes.

They both watch Michael, blissfully smiling at his guitar as he plays along to her voice.  
  


_“Don’t feel the need to stay with me,  
And let me bum you out,  
All I ask, all I wish,  
Is that you’ll let me out and set me free.  
  
Save me.”_

Releasing Janet’s hand, Eleanor moves herself over to kneel beside Michael, her elbows on the armrest as she watches him up close. There’s the slightest wince as he strums the bridge, slowing it down a little. He takes a deep breath, blinking rapidly, before he gazes forlorn into the distance.

Without looking at the lyrics in her hand, he carries on singing with her;  
  


_“I’m trapped in the Bad Place,  
And I may have lost my mind,  
Please know that I love you,  
Let’s leave all the rest behind.  
  
I miss you like crazy,  
My freaky trash-baby.  
Please. Save me.”_

He rounds it off with a final six chords before stilling. Michael sits up and looks at Eleanor at his side, tears on her cheeks as she watches him. She sees him.

“Wow.” He sighs, “That was awful.”

Eleanor can’t help but laugh, rubbing at her nose. Is he saying that because he’s genuinely disappointed in his own work or because it made her cry?

“I think it might be your best yet.” Not that the bar was very high but she doesn’t say that.

All she does is rest her chin on the armrest, watching as Michael retunes his guitar some more.

“Definitely has some potential there.” He moves one hand from the handle to strokes his fingers over her hair; “We’ll make it right.”

Eleanor sniffs, smiling at his touch. She hopes so.

“Hey.” She touches his arm, her heart skipping when he doesn’t flinch at her contact; “I thought about a present you could give me?”

“Oh? You want me to make Tahani Anagonye for you?” He puts his fingers in the air.

Eleanor grins and shakes her head. She reaches to take his hand, stopping him from creating another gorgeous but unholy crime against nature.

“No magic required for this, bud.” She says to him.

“Okay. What can I do? Tell me.”

_Tell me._

_You can kiss me._

Eleanor sighs; “Can I just have a hug?”

Michael blinks, looking surprised and touched before moving his guitar to one side. He opens his arms for her and she leans forward, sliding her arms around his middle. His hands are still awkward, patting and stroking with uncertain kindness. But it’s something. It’s not him reeling back in fear or slipping into another reality where she can’t find him. It’s a start. Their new start.

She buries her head in his chest, breathing in the scent of his shirt that always smells fresh and lemony. He…Her Michael believed in her. Believed that she would find him. Save him.

She will. No matter what it takes, she will.

“At least now there’s no way you can forget my name.” She smiles into him.

“You’re right about that, Elliot.”

“Okay, now you’re forking with me.” She pulls back and looks at him.

He wipes one of her tears away; “Little bit, yeah.”

Once a demon, always a demon. The best and bravest and sweetest demon who ever was. Her demon.

*

Eleanor. Eleanor. Eleanor. Write it on the chalk board in your mind. Ten more, every hour, on the hour. Eleanor. Eleanor. Eleanor.

Her name is Eleanor.

Eleanor leads him out, into the sun, by the hand. Eleanor takes him on a tour of the Good Place. Eleanor sits with him on the couch and watches the memories from Glenn's head of them and their friends together. Everything he missed. Everything he has to look forward to.

Eleanor. Eleanor. Eleanor.

Eleanor takes him to the arcade. Eleanor listens to him play. Eleanor sings with him. Eleanor makes him laugh for the first time. Eleanor shows him how to have fun.

Eleanor. Eleanor. El-

Oh.

Eleanor clutches his hand when the Angry One returns in his head. Eleanor kisses his cheek.

Eleanor...likes him? He loves Eleanor.

Oh forking shirtballs... _Her name was..._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't write song lyrics to save my life but thankfully neither can Michael. XD
> 
> And that's where I plan to leave this for now. I *might* write a final part to it at some point but for now I kinda like leaving them on that sad but hopeful note and all the time in the world to fix each other. Thanks for reading!


End file.
